I'm not trying to be antagonistic with this reply but it seems a bit silly at this day in age to still be making these nonsense arguments. The world will ultimately move forward whether you choose to get on board or not. Your arguments are based on a biased egoistic opinion, not fact or even logic.
Any other form of parentage is worse for the child than biological parents
This is a major over generalization and has no basis in reality. There are millions of cases where parents are unsuited to raise their children as demonstrated by the many children's aid programs, orphanages...etc. There are bad foster parents and their are bad biological parents, so it doesn't make much sense to say that one is definitively better for a child over the other. If a parent abandons their child then adopted parents are probably going to be better suited to raise the child then the biological parents would have.
Your point on what marriage is doesn't really mean anything either. The definition or marriage is:
the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship
Maybe you are using a different definition but if you are, then that in itself suggests that there are multiple ways of viewing the concept.
Marriage cannot be re-defined.
Marriage is a social construct so to say that it cannot be re-define is nonsense. Words get re-defined all the time. As people use words in daily living they often take on new meanings. This is how language operates. Even Websters dictionary has to update itself periodically and change the definitions of words to suite the new reality. For instance, the word "retarded" used to be a scientific word that had a specific meaning and it was used to categorize certain individuals within society - but that words meaning has drastically changed over time and has now become a derogatory term that is rarely used. That is just one (of many) examples of words changing meaning within society.
Overtime society changes and our interpretation of reality changes. So the question is are you on the side of promoting love for all humans or on the side of promoting fear and hate? You don't have to answer that question for me but for yourself.
Marriage is the word we have used to describe a very particular form of relationship. If you try assign the word marriage to something else it can’t keep the original meaning.
Who recognises marriage does not change fundamentally what marriage is.
The word “retard” did not change meaning but the reaction to using it did. This is a symptom of political correctness, since “retard” was the politically correct umbrella term. There are some other words that have had the same treatment.
Though there are backwards cases where children are better off with other people than biological parents, there are specific factors leading to this and the overwhelming reality is that biological parents are far better.
Regarding marriage keeping its original meaning - it seems as though you are seeing the concept of marriage as a sort of absolute truth rather than what it is - a social construct. Any concept created by humans can also be changed by humans. At this point in time, it doesn't make sense to hold on to an outdated meaning if that meaning no longer applies to the current reality. It makes more sense for the meaning of words to evolve along with the reality of the world.
Who recognizes marriage actually does fundamentally change it. Words hold meaning only because humans give them meaning. Words in themselves are nothing more than a symbol which overtime, comes to represent a concept. Concepts are held in place by an agreeance of individuals. However, as the individuals who maintain the concept change their understanding of the concept, we see a general paradigm shift towards a new meaning. That is how science and philosophy and ultimately human society, operate.
As already stated words change meaning all the time:
"Gay" used to mean "happy," now it means "man who has sex with men."
"Sick" used to mean "ill," now it means something is "awesome."
"Cell" used to mean "jail" or "body component," now it means "phone."
"hook up" used to mean obtain a service, now is means to "have a sexual encounter with someone."
and so on and so on...
To say that words cannot change their meaning is nonsense really.
Definitional truths are absolute.
Your examples are not very good because the meaning is still there in most of them.
Gay still means happy, but has a homosexual connotation due to the fact that gay men are more openly whimsical and cheery.
Sick still means ill. There was a period where people used it to mean something completely different, and this is one of the few valid examples, which I will address later.
Cell means the same thing. A jail cell, a body cell and a cellular phone all use the word in the same fundamental way.
Hook up is in regards to communication, and so the sexual connotations are an implication of the communication.
The word sick was used differently in a particular type of culture. This did not alter the meaning of the word, but created a new meaning relevant to the specific culture. Altering the meaning of a word is not the same as applying the word to a different situation. You could create an additional definition for the word marriage but the fundamental relationship will not change.
The reason marriage cannot be redefined or undefined is because the word marriage, which doesn't need to be the word marriage and could be the word snurbleburp, refers to a very specific type of relationship. This relationship could be called anything but it remains the same thing. Whoever wants to recognise the relationship does not alter the relationship. You could use the word marriage to mean whatever, but you can't redefine the relationship.
The misunderstanding between us is that you were under the impression that I was referring to the word, not the meaning. I am referring to the meaning, not the word.