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On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court will give its black-robed judicial attention to the issue -- as it is called -- of gay marriage. A question I hope the court will take up is: Can gay marriage be banned in a nation that prizes equal treatment under the law, whose people generally like to be left alone on what they consider personal matters?
Somewhere near the heart of the argument will be the Michigan constitutional amendment adopted in 2004 that put 2,698,448 voters on the record saying that marriage is exclusively the union of a man and a woman. Dissenting were 1,904,319 -- the total of both columns being 4,602,767 -- or something less than half of the state's population of 9,909,877.
One issue the state attorney general will be laying before the court is that the voters of Michigan defined what marriage is and shall be within the state's borders. The argument is that the voters are entitled to define such a thing, and their decision is binding and inviolable.
Let's define "to define." Definere is the Latin root. It means "to set final -- or not to be challenged -- boundaries" or limits of qualities, quantities or meaning of whatever is at issue. A certain book is said to be the "definitive" biography of a person, or the "definitive" answer to an academic inquiry -- at least until a newer, better book or dissertation comes along.
We usually go to the dictionary for a "definition" of a word, but what we find mostly in a dictionary is usage. Usage in great part influences the definition of the word.
"Define God," a parishioner once challenged me in what he hoped was a gotcha moment. I reached for a much-thumbed volume on my shelf that contained dictionary-like explanations of theological terms.
I read aloud a paragraph appearing under the term "god." It made clear that different people in different cultures at different times have attempted to give the word "god" -- in whatever language -- a final, unchallengeable definition. It worked until a different people in one of those different times or cultures came up with another definition. The paragraph ended with the caution that it was well nigh impossible to put universally definitive limits on the meaning of such a word or, in fact, of a great many words. A good logical positivist would agree.
You will not be surprised to learn that the parishioner in this case dismissed out of hand what I had read, saying that the Bible or the Prayer Book is the only valid source of belief. He said, "You should let God be God." Resigned to being seen as inadequate in his eyes, I said: "No problem."
Most dictionaries published in the United States define "marriage" as the formal union of a man and a woman. We would expect that, because for a long time the word was used of such a relationship.
"Prevent" is an English word that for several centuries meant "to lead" as in the collect from the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer: Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings, with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. That was then the common usage of "prevent." Look it up today, and its definition in normal use is "to keep from happening" -- as in Smoky the Bear's admonition: "Only you can prevent forest fires."
The point is that usage and definitions change as facts change, as minds change, as cultures change. Before the epoch-making observations of Charles Darwin were published and incorporated into the world's body of knowledge, creation was defined -- at least by Jews and Christians -- as the work of the gods (Elohim) in one biblical version and as the work of Yahweh in another. All upright people so believed.
The origin of Earth and the vast remainder of the ever-expanding universe is now defined by astrophysicists to be the still-unfolding result of a Big Bang lasting all of a nanosecond some 14 billion years ago. Every such scientist worthy of the name is trying to falsify that definition just as Darwin's successors seek, if not to upend his analysis, at least to refine it.
Is a bun defined as a hairdo or as something in which one cradles a grilled frankfurter? Is a bee an insect that stings you or a communal project to raise a barn? Is a person said to be "mad" angry, or is he a candidate for an asylum? Is a car that shiny thing in your driveway or a day coach on an Amtrak train?
Meanwhile, how dare it be said that some millions of voters anywhere can define forever what "marriage" means. To them, the word means a woman-man relationship recognized by the state and given benefit of magistrate or clergy. To others, the definition widens to include relationships of two men or of two women. Can something so intensely personal as marriage be decided by a simple majority vote that, moreover, reeked of ignorance and bigotry?
A woman of a certain age who was for years a member of my parish sported a bumper sticker that read: "AGAINST ABORTION? DON'T HAVE ONE." Perhaps today she would have a companion sticker that says "AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE? DON'T WED ONE."
Religious communities are obviously free to offer or deny the rite of marriage to whom they will in accordance with their canon law or established policies. But no church's definition of marriage may be applied to those unaffiliated with it -- not in a nation whose First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion.
A state, being part of the government of the United States of America, is responsible to honor in practice the U.S. Constitution's demand for "equal protection of the law."* Thus voters of a state cannot be constitutionally permitted to "define" what marriage is or should be for others anymore than they are free to define what love is.
*Amendment XIV of the United States Constitution
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