have always been up front about my personal views of morality.
I should have said 'If one wants . . . '. My remark wasn't directed at you, and I noted parenthetically that you wer, in fact, presenting your argument in terms of your own moral beliefs.
Maybe I am reading you wrong, but it appears that you are saying that words do not matter because they change (and once they change their original meanings, the one's that prove intent, they are forever lost) and the intent does not matter anyway because the supreme court is free to ignore the intent or change the intent of a law based upon nothing but vapor.
No, and I don't think I could mean that consistently with my other posts in this thread (and elsewhere). What my remarks about words were intended to convey -- and I think this will be clear if you reread them -- is that I think it's dishonest to present arguments on this subject as though what's really at issue is just a matter of linguistics. People who object to same-sex marriages and relationships are not concerned about 'definitions' or whether judges stick to the dictionary; they're concerned about the morality (or otherwise) of certain sexual practices.
Hang with me here, long sentences.
I agree with you but at the same time I don't agree with your opinion that this was the point being made.
The point being made as I understood it is that the words and wording had meaning and the meaning that those words represented was and are indeed real meanings.
The problem is not one of mere linguistics, at least from the conservative side. The problem of lingusitics only arises if the activist side chooses to pretend that the altering of a word's original meaning does not really change the legal meaning and in turn its legal impact as intended by those who originally chose those particular words to convey a particular meaning.