Friday 11 January 2013

An Adventure in Queer Semantics

I woke up this morning to an epiphany.

Okay, so it was more of a pondering than an epiphany. A 'ponderiphany', if you will. In fact, there's a chance I may be confusing 'epiphany' with 'hangover', but that's not the point. This morning I woke up with a THOUGHT IN MY HEAD. And alcohol in my system. 

(Yes I went out last night. Yes I downed a pint of beer in a vain attempt  to prove to the resident drag queen that I wasn't a straight girl. Yes I may still be drunk. Enough!)

The thought that I woke up with in my head alongside alcohol in my system was this:
I use the term 'gay marriage' to further illustrate the silliness of these people. I am constantly threatening to marry my non-straight male friend; this would constitute a VERY gay marriage, but one which nobody would forcibly disallow. At the same time, not everybody who is in a committed same-sex relationship identifies as gay. Same-sex marriage is a more accurate term, (although still not as encompassing as it could be).

Anyway, I'm deviating. I would be terrible on 'Just a Minute'. Did I mention I have alcohol in my system?


My favourite argument against legalising same-sex marriage is that it would mean 'Redefining Marriage'***. The logical fallacies of this "argument" have been pointed out many times, with the focus mainly on different historical (and ethically dubious) 'definitions' of marriage. My observation is a little more pedantic than that.

The issue with the 'redefining marriage' argument is that it very silly. I would go as far to say that this argument is almost as silly as the silly people who say such silly nonsense.

My issue with the argument is this - how on EARTH can the minor alteration of a definition be horrifying? And when did THAT overtake terrorism, poverty and environmental crises as the scariest eventuality for life on our planet?


I wonder if these same people become as outraged when other words are reinterpreted.



As is inevitable when dealing with something as silly as this, sooner or later we reach the 'slippery slope' argument. If we allow marriage to be redefined, where do we draw the line about changing the meanings of other words? What if all we know about the English language ceases to be true? WHAT IF WE SPEND THE REST OF ETERNITY AS UNWILLING PARTICIPANTS IN 'THE OPPOSITES GAME'?!

In response, I have this to say: if the spontaneous redefinition of words is the worst we have to worry about as a society, then I'd say we're doing alright. It's a minor risk to take when it comes to achieving equal human rights. And it's not as if we're suddenly going to start sponging all the paper lamps, seven spangle, flump?


Tuna Varnish,

BT x

***'Redefining Marriage' - copyright of Right-Wing Bigots Corp. 

6 comments:

  1. This is bigoted against watermelon bras. They are not silly. WHAT NEXT, WILL YOU NOT LIKE MY MANGO CLOGS?!
    But I do give you an internet round of applause for this. And I also hope you have less alcohol in your cistern soon.. ;)

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    1. Oh! :( But watermelon bras are the good kind of silly! Silly is good so long as it doesn't infringe upon somebody's human rights! Afraid your mango clogs are terrible though. Sorry. Didn't you realise that vintage banana skin slippers are the only footwear to own?

      Also, thank you. On both counts. ;)

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    2. I have an idea to fix the above watermelon drama. (recommend a drawing of a drama llama in the next post also, just incase the mini alpaca is too despairing to go on...) Let us redefine the meaning of the word silly! Might as well go the whole hog. ;)

      You speak The Sense as always, my love! Which is more than most hungover people can say. ;) xx

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    3. Oooh, is this a request? Because I'm torn between a drama llama and an allama... a dramallarma? Thank you! Any sense spouted is due to the platypus, however. ;) x

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  2. am now wondering why you hadn't shared this before (unless you had and i'd missed it of course) but you are hilarious and lovely and all your blog entries are ace

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    1. I hadn't shared it before, wasn't sure if it was TMI but I'm glad I did now. THANK YOU :D

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