Just a few weeks after columnist Miranda Devine chastised the media for utilising the phrase ‘marriage equality’ a whole bunch of new phrases have been thrown into the marriage equality (sorry Miranda) discussion.
Leading the charge is Lyle Shelton from the Australian Christian Lobby who has adopted the phrase ‘gender diverse marriage’ in the lobby group’s latest press releases.
This is quite an improvement on the phrase ‘man-woman marriage’ that the group have used in the past, which I always thought sounded a bit neanderthal.
It also reminded me of a cool b-side track by disco artist M every time some said it. I’ll admit, maybe that’s where the deep voice in my head declaring ‘woman and man’ comes from.
‘Man Woman Marriage’ It also had the drawback of sounding rather close to that imaginary slippery slope that we’re all about to topple off; man woman marriage, woman woman marriage, man man marriage, man woman man marriage, goat chicken marriage, table chair marriage.
As the arguments against marriage equality (sorry Miranda) have changed tack this phrase has been shelved.
‘Gender diversity’, it sounds like something that people can get behind, “I’m having a gender diverse marriage”. Sounds positively hipster.
It certainly beats some of the phrases coughed up on the letters pages of newspapers recently. Like the oft used ‘traditional marriage’, the more time logged ‘ancient marriage’ and the odd sounding ‘natural marriage’.
‘Ancient’ and ‘traditional’ marriage don’t work as well because the opposite ‘a modern marriage’ sounds quite appealing. I can quite imagine Julie Andrews running in for a thoroughly modern marriage.
Dr David van Gend from the Australian Marriage Forum called it “homosexual marriage” during a debate on ABC regional radio last week.
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison declared he supports “marriage integrity”, but it makes it sound like he’s checking the structure of a newly built wall. Good integrity, it won’t fall down.
The Prime Minister at times has struggled to find the right words for this debate, once stumbling through a press conference referring only to “this issue”.
Maybe we should just call it marriage.
Graeme Watson
image:maximkabb
