NYT dubs man-woman union: 'Opposite-sex marriage'

Many Americans may be accustomed to hearing the term "same-sex marriage" in news reports about homosexual unions, but now the New York Times is also referring to traditional matrimony as "opposite-sex marriage."

In his Oct. 26 news report on a homosexual lawsuit to overturn California's Proposition 8 reserving marriage for a man and a woman, New York Times reporter Adam Liptak described traditional unions as "opposite-sex marriage."

Referring to attorney Charles J. Cooper, who is pressing the case against recognition of homosexual marriage, Liptak wrote, "The government should be allowed to favor opposite-sex marriages, Mr. Cooper said, in order 'to channel naturally procreative sexual activity between men and women into stable, enduring unions.'"

Catholic League president Bill Donohue pointed out that the New York Times has used the term "opposite-sex marriage" 10 times in the past, and in a news story only five times. He also noted that the term was used on a few occasions in the 1990s by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Yale Law Journal and the New Republic.

"Is this the start of one more round of corrupting the English language?" Donohue asked in an editorial on the Catholic League website.

He said use of the term reveals a distressing pattern.

"Here's how it will play out in the classroom: kindergartners will be told that some adults choose same-sex marriage and some choose opposite-sex marriage," Donohue wrote. "There is no moral difference – it's just a matter of different strokes for different folks. Not mentioned, of course, will be that some male-on-male sex practices are dangerous. Nor will it be pointed out that only so-called opposite-sex marriages are capable of reproducing the human race.

"In other words, the kids will be lied to about what nature ordains."

While Donahue acknowledged that politicization of language is nothing new, he called the New York Times example "particularly disturbing."

"Marriage means one thing, and attempts to make it a smorgasbord are pernicious," he said.

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