(June 28, 2015 at 4:16 am)Razzle Wrote: I'm reminded of those who complain that gay people changed the meaning of the word 'gay' to mean homosexual ('hijacked a perfectly good word'), yet never have any problem using the word 'queer' to mean homosexual, changing its original meaning from 'peculiar'. Difference? Presumably it's fine to change the meaning of a word to homosexual if the change comes from straight people and is pejorative. But if the meaning was changed by gay people and is NOT pejorative, it's a shame about the original meaning getting lost.
This quibbling over the word 'marriage' looks like the same phenomenon. They say they don't want a word's definition changed, but their acceptance of other definition changes betrays the fact that what they ACTUALLY don't want is a word changed *in a way that destigmatises gays and bisexuals*
A big pet peeve of mine throughout this debate has been the idea that the meaning of the word "marriage" might be changed.
Holy shit, you mean a word's meaning might evolve? Are you kidding me? You mean that language is not a static relationship of concepts hammered into stone to pass down through the eons where one people can speak to another without translation? What about Middle English? What about entirely new languages which grow out of the separation of tribes or other cultural groupings?
The meanings of most words, especially nouns and verbs, change over time. By wishing to cling to a specific example, modern-day bigots are not only fighting an egalitarian morality, they are also fighting raw facts.
