The Australian 30 Jan 2013
Renaming gay marriage as “sarriage” would end divisions over marriage equality, New Zealand’s parliament has been told in a quirky submission on marriage equality legislation.
The government administration committee heard a mix of views on Wednesday, including from Russell Morrison, who is concerned the bill will give the word “marriage” more than one meaning.
“There are already too many words in our language with multiple meanings and I don’t believe that we should be adding to that situation,” he said. He says the words “marry” and “marriage” are understood to refer to a man and a woman, so he’s come up with his own solution to avoid any confusion: “sarry” and “sarriage”. “Then a person can be asked whether he or she is married or sarried, and the response will make the situation clear for everybody.”
. . . Mr Morrison said MPs may have already dismissed it as a “crackpot idea”, perhaps because they don’t like the word or because they don’t think it’s up to parliament to introduce new words into language. “If that’s the case, I have to ask whose role that is, and why shouldn’t parliament do so if it sees the need?” he said. “If you don’t like the word, by all means use something else. But if you actually try saying it for a little while over and over it doesn’t actually sound so out of place.” http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/new-word-proposed-to-embrace-same-sex-marriage/story-e6frg6so-1226564950895
