The words! THE WORDS!

I don't think I have a whole lot to add to what Cuttlefish has to say about the new California gender-neutral marriage form:

The bonds of holy matrimony
Must be seen as wholly phony
If, instead of "Bride and Groom" (or else, of "Man and Wife"),
It's "Party A and Party B"
(That's plainly not the same, you see!
That's no way to address the one who's going to share your life!)

Our Fellowship (Abundant Life)
Says marriage joins a Man and Wife
Forever as a couple, in Our Lord’s Most Holy View
As is, this form disparages
The sanctity of marriages—
(We ought to know—for each of us, it’s marriage number two)

We cannot enter wedded bliss
With such a godless form as this
A wedding contract, clearly, is between a bride and groom!
This stupid governmental form
Makes abnormality the norm—
A sign of the Apocalypse! A harbinger of doom!

If "Party B and Party A"
Is what the license now will say
The parties are both equal, which is not what God would say!
This new form is a disaster
If it doesn't name me "Master",
And it doesn't state specifically, the missus must obey!

*
*
*


There are some who, even if they tried,
Could not—as yet—be Bride and Bride;
And could not even (yet) be Party A and Party B;
But still I hope that soon, some day
That any couple—straight or gay
Is given equal treatment here… from C to shining C.

So, there're the obvious points that the new form is simply another step toward equal rights, etc., and that these assholes are just mad that their mythology is losing its grip on our culture, blah blah blah, [insert my usual rant here]. What gets me, though, is the extent to which people get themselves worked up over a couple words. IT'S JUST FUCKING WORDS!* It makes no tangible difference whether the form says "Groom and Bride" or "Party A and Party B", you're still goddamn married! And more than that, it's just words on a government form. It's like getting mad about the wording on your tax return: who cares? It's just a piece of beauricratic red tape. The function is all that matters, the form is irrelevent, as long as it records your marriage!** It's the same as the people who are all for civil unions, as long as gays aren't allowed to use the word 'marriage'. It's just a goddam*** word! Function is what matters! Words are just labels! Of course, I obviously have no appreciation for the importance of specific words. I to this day can't understand why 'shit' is a bad word, while any number of other four-letter synonyms for fecal matter are acceptable. Why is 'fuck' bad, while 'screw' (which, to me, has a much more aggressive, even sexist connotation) is ok?

*I'd say 'no pun intended', but there is no pun here, as we all know (even if the fundies won't admit it) that marriage and fucking are two seperate things that may or may not overlap.

**Geez, look at that. I started out by saying I wasn't going to add anything, and yet here I am...

***I'm trying to keep religion out of this blog -- well, society ideally -- entirely (see the giant red 'A' in the sidebar), but I consider an explative to be an acceptable, non-religious use of the letter-sequence g-o-d, especially since their mythology expressly forbids that usage.