Via Facebook friends, this image of a quote from writer and comedian Liz Feldman:
Feldman’s point, made with humor, is that she wants marriage between people of the same sex to be viewed as simply marriage, using the same term that we use for marriage between people of opposite sexes who happen to be, say, of different races or ethnicities or nationalities or of significantly different ages or of significantly different educational levels, or both over 60, or both under 20, or both of the same status (or different statuses) with respect to divorce or widowhood — all of these being socially significant properties of married couples, but for which we have no ordinary-language terms. That is, Feldman wants to normalize marriage between people of the same sex (as do I, under the heading of “marriage equality”).
But of course there are many people who vehemently resist the normalization of such marriages, and consequently reject unmodified marriage as a term embracing them. (In fact, they seem to massively prefer gay marriage as the relevant term, presumably because it injects sexuality — and by implication, sexual acts — into the vocabulary, while same-sex marriage is neutral in the matter.) So a dispute over the status of relationships in the law plays out in part as contention over vocabulary.
