Marriages are marriages are marriages

In its ongoing bumble of style recommendations, the Associated Press regards the terms “husband” and “wife” as applying to opposite-sex marriages by default and only to same-sex marriages or civil unions when explicitly used by the individuals to whom the words refer.

In a memo released on Monday, AP detailed its philosophy. This memo included the rather harsh sentence, “Generally AP uses couples or partners to describe people in civil unions or same-sex marriages.”

Following a rather intense backlash from LGBT advocacy groups, the AP clarified its meaning, but still included that sentence in the revised memo.

Honestly, I’m appalled that we’re still having this conversation. On Thursday morning, my extended family extended by two more when my cousin had twins. I’m ashamed that these babies will spend any part of their lives in a world where we still haven’t gotten this together.

It’s not enough that same-sex couples have had to fight for years to gain the equal right to marry the person they love. Now they have to fight to have that marriage equally recognized by media outlets that use AP style.

These same couples — and all LGBT-identifying individuals — have had to contend with homophobic attitudes for decades.

But last fall, when AP released a statement on usage of terms like “Islamophobia” and “ethic cleansing,” it also pulled “homophobia” from the stylebook.

At the time, AP defended its decision by arguing that -phobia implies an “irrational, uncontrollable fear.”

Some news organizations have argued that these recommendations don’t imply any moral stance and remain neutral on the issue.

But the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation called AP’s memo in reference to same-sex couples a “value judgement on the part of AP” that endorses a type of separate-but-equal set of nomenclature. I’m inclined to agree.

In case you’re confused, let me be absolutely clear.

If you carry signs with slogans that read “God hates fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers” because you think God is meting out punishment for tolerance of homosexuality, you have an irrational, absurd fear.

You are a homophobe, and you should be called one.

If you’ve gone to the trouble of getting married — whether to someone of the same or opposite sex — then you are married.

You’ve taken a step that requires deliberate thought and decision. You’re not same-sex married or opposite-sex married, you’re just married.

The person you married is your spouse, not your same-sex spouse or your opposite-sex spouse or your partner or your “friend.”

They are your wife, your husband. That’s exactly what they should be called.

Anything less — including an implication by any news organization that this marriage might be anything but valid, anything but true, anything but real — is absolutely a value judgment.

­— drlreed@indiana.edu