Same-sex marriage needs new category

By Graham Tye, North Las Vegas

Thursday, May 14, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Reading Dick Meyer’s column regarding the Supreme Court’s arguments about same-sex marriage (Marriage case places weight of history on justices,” Las Vegas Sun, May 5), I felt I should make a greater effort to understand the arguments with which they’re struggling. Somewhere along the line I remembered hearing same-sex couples referring to their partners as “husband” or “wife.”

By freely adopting these titles (currently defined as the male partner in a marriage and the female partner in a marriage), surely same-sex couples have recognized that marriage is between a male and female. Unable to differentiate themselves by actual sex, they have agreed (by what criteria I know not) to do so by title and maybe role within their partnership.

So if the justices decide to give same-sex marriage “constitutional sanction,” not only will the core definition of marriage be inoperable, so will the definition of husband and wife, leading to someone saying, “This is my son John, and he is the wife of ...”

Justice Stephen Breyer spoke of “one group of people” who have been barred from the “fundamental liberty” of marriage. Surely this is not so since marriage existed long before this group gained the wider social recognition and acceptance it has today. So rather than now force-fit same-sex unions into “marriage” (designed to be inflexible, but kudos to Henry VIII for divorce), would it not be better to recognize its unique position in our social development with the creation of a new and complementary institution? I believe civil partnership was a foundation to build upon, not discard.

If we continue down the current path, I see a widening beam of light emanating from Pandora’s Box.