Semantics -- Wife or Spouse

In this article, John Haskins, commentator and associate director of the Parents' Rights Coalition, is ranting to the editor of the Boston Globe. Apparently he takes issue with the following, an excerpt from an article in the aforementioned paper:

"Jennifer Price, 34, is a doctoral student at Harvard's Graduate School of Education who lives in Newton with her spouse and their two young children. She takes over at Newton North High School in July."

Mr. Haskins writes:

Now, Helen, you're not intentionally avoiding a franker use of English just so the precipitously declining readership of this once great newspaper won't be confronted with the sheer absurdity of this propaganda, are you? Why not simply write "her wife"?

Let's see, what's the definition of spouse:

spouse
Pronunciation: 'spaus also 'spauz
Function: noun
Meaning: A marriage partner; a husband or wife.

Okay, Mr. Haskins, let me introduce you to another word in the English language:

synonym
Pronunciation: 'si-n&-"nim
Function: noun
Meaning: A word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language.

And here he lays down the patented homophobic smoke screen used by all rabid bigots:

The Globe has never run an honest article on the far greater prevalence of molestation of children by homosexuals - including lesbians - or an honest article on the statistical near non-existence of "stable" male homosexual relationships, especially of the monogamous kind.

Oh, so now lesbians are molesting children too. Let's talk about "stable" heterosexual relationships for a moment. Here is an excerpt from a Census Bureau report titled, "Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriages and Divorces: 1996"

About 50% of first marriages for men under age 45 may end in divorce, and between 44 and 52% of women's first marriages may end in divorce for these age groups.

John, do us all a favor: shut the fuck up and crawl back under your slimy rock.


tags: homosexuality, homosexual, gay, homophobia