On gay marriage language

Ampersand at Alas, a blog -- one of the nicer looking blogs out there -- has a short post on gay marriage. He/She? thinks that "gender neutral marriage" is the best term to define what's popularly known as "gay marriage."

I'm not sure gay marriage requires that much time be spent on nomenclature. I think taking the time to dwell on an agreed upon name for gay marriage -- aside from being a little egotistical -- also is a little discriminating, and makes gay marriage some kind of subset of marriage, or even a whole different thing from it, it gives it a sense of otherness.

I think sometimes focusing too much on language -- as anti-Orwellian as that might sound -- is probably a bad thing. Some things need not be argued about linguistically because they really should be taken as given rights. Gender neutral marriage is almost a reduction to the absurd. How about just marriage? The gender of the participants should really be a nonissue.

I think what we're trying to do is redefine the meaning of marriage, but probably not by posting a decree on a blog saying "henceforth 'marriage' will include those unions with two people of the same sex."