What's In A Word?: Marriage-Equality Activists Aim At The Dictionary
Via The Huffington Post:
Cultural changes can have many battlegrounds: town halls, city streets, voting booths. Now, a New Hampshire resident plans to fight the marriage-equality battle in another forum—he wants dictionaries to print a more inclusive definition of the word "marriage."
Mike Raven recently created a petition in response to North Carolina's passage of a constitutional ban on marriage equality. "While we cannot change the oppressive and discriminatory way that some religions continue to define marriage, we can go to an even better place. I believe it is time to correct the definition of marriage at our sources for what words mean: dictionaries." What new definition does he have in mind? He believes marriage should be defined as "two consenting adults, entering into a life-long relationship as husband and wife, husband and husband, or wife and wife, based on love and commitment."
His petition has Dictionary.com in its sights—a website that over 50 million people visit every month. Currently, the site's definition has no reference to same-sex unions at all, and both Merriam-Webster and the first result of a Google search yield only hetero results. At press time, his petition has accumulated 100,000 signatures with a goal of 150,000—but time will tell if this is enough to change Dictionary.com's mind.
Can changing the dictionary to more accurately reflect our culture really have an impact? You can view the official petition here.
News by Dave Reuss
Dave Reuss manages Outside Bozeman Magazine. He showcases his work and prostitutes himself to freelance clients at reusswriting.com.
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Comments
A doubleplus good entry for the Ingsoc Newspeak Dictionary! Will help prevent thoughtcrime and ensure adherence to the Party's blackwhite.
There's the dictionary and then there's the legal definition of a word. This might help the grass-root effort, but it's not like you can point to the dictionary and say a law should be overturned.
This is a great idea. If LOL can be in the Dictionary, then this damn well should be.
I don't see anything wrong with dictionaries becoming more inclusive. Will it make a difference? Probably not. It's not as if kids would be looking up "marriage" in the dictionary (since they would be the ones who would need to grow up differently and with a more inclusive mentality, for society to change). Just as a statement, it's a nice thought from the part of those who want to add this definition. But much more is needed to see people's minds change. In fact, I think the entertainment industry has done more for this issue than a dictionary can.
Can't we just do away with marriage altogether? It's a fucking sham.
@ J.Y. - Spot on.
The marriage issues stems from the fact that both religious and secular instituitons use the same term, but with different meanings. Marriage should be retained as a religious sacrament, and the State should stop using the term "marriage" altogether. That way, the various religious sects can keep their "sanctity," and the State can avoid the current, blatant hypocracy. Last I checked, "separate is not equal."
I'm all for them changing the dictionary definition of the word "marriage" as a precursor to the legal definition of the word.
Unfortunately, as has been stated, I'm not entirely sure that this step will ever lead to the actual changing of the legal definition in many states; let alone federally. Somehow, the people who run our country seem to have fallen into letting major religions dictate what should and should not be laws despite the separation of church and state idea that is toted about by the forefathers.