CONTACTAbout UsCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2025 Equal Entertainment LLC.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
We need your help
Your support makes The Advocate's original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Become a member today to help us continue this work.
Your support makes The Advocate's original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Become a member today to help us continue this work.
The new edition of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, scheduled to be published next fall, will reflect an updated definition of marriage to include gay and lesbian relationships, the Edmonton Journal reports. The new definition of marriage will read "the legal or religious union of two people," said editor in chief Katherine Barber. "Dictionaries just reflect what the actual reality is," Barber explained. "If a dictionary says a marriage is the union of a man and a woman, that's just describing the fact that has been the case for hundreds of years. But if the law changes or society changes or something happens where the word marriage comes to apply to same-sex unions, we just change the definition." Barber said she made the change after a ruling by the Ontario court of appeal on June 10, in which the court decided that restricting matrimony to "one man and one woman" violated the dignity of gay couples, and it redefined marriage as "the voluntary union for life of two persons to the exclusion of all others." Until recently the Canadian legal definition of marriage derived from an 1866 court ruling in England, in which Lord Penzance wrote, "I conceive that marriage, as understood in Christendom, may...be defined as the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others." But the word marriage, when traced back to its Latin origins, does not actually specify a man and a woman. According to the Reverend Walter Skeat's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, the word marry properly means "to provide with a husband" and derives from the Latin mari, meaning "male." The Latin word for wife, marita, literally means "joined to a male." Barber said the reason some people object to a new definition boils down to homophobia. "They don't want to admit that gay people can have relationships that are just like their ideal heterosexual relationship," she said.
From our Sponsors
Most Popular
Watch Now: Pride Today
Latest Stories
Louisiana Medicaid quietly stops reimbursing patients for gender-affirming care
July 11 2025 3:35 PM
Harvard seemingly caves to Trump, shuts down LGBTQ+ and women's center websites
July 11 2025 3:08 PM
11 lesbian & sapphic reality dating shows & where to watch them
July 11 2025 12:49 PM
Yes, Superman is an immigrant. He's also a gay icon.
July 11 2025 12:31 PM
15 best LGBTQ-friendly all-inclusive resorts for honeymoons
July 11 2025 12:29 PM
Trump's DOJ subpoenas doctors and medical clinics that care for transgender youth
July 11 2025 9:36 AM
True
After trans people, Trump now erases bisexual people from Stonewall National Monument
July 10 2025 10:45 PM
Black trans woman Dream Johnson killed in Washington, D.C.
July 10 2025 7:59 PM