well Ben, well Zero, marriage is what the people say it is.. if the majority of the people in a society says it’s between a man a woman only, then that is what it is.
“....if the majority of the people in a society says it’s between a man a woman only....”
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Is that what they’re saying?
I understand that over 50% of the population define marriage between a male and a female but that the same people do not object if Joe and John want to get hitched before a justice of the peace.
“...if the majority of the people in a society says it’s between a man a woman only, then that is what it is.”
The definition of marriage the state uses to recognize the institution is whatever judges, pols, or 51% of the voting public think it can be at any one time. That’s it, that’s all it will ever be in the modern era. It was always a danger that it woud depart from the actual definition. Indeed, some faiths will never accept remarriage after civil divorce, while the state has already done so for many, many years.
‘Now, since the family and human society at large spring from marriage, these men will on no account allow matrimony to be the subject of the jurisdiction of the Church. Nay, they endeavor to deprive it of all holiness, and so bring it within the contracted sphere of those rights which, having been instituted by man, are ruled and administered by the civil jurisprudence of the community. Wherefore it necessarily follows that they attribute all power over marriage to civil rulers, and allow none whatever to the Church; and, when the Church exercises any such power, they think that she acts either by favor of the civil authority or to its injury. Now is the time, they say, for the heads of the State to vindicate their rights unflinchingly, and to do their best to settle all that relates to marriage according as to them seems good.’
—Pope Leo XIII, 1880
Freegards