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Same-sex marriage (SSM):
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We Just add this page for you to understand what Christianity thinks about ssm.

Quotations:

What the Bible says about same-sex marriage (SSM):

We know now that the vast majority of adults are either heterosexual or homosexual. Also, a small minority are bisexual. However the authors of the Bible seem quite unaware that some persons had a homosexual orientation. The authors knew of certain forms of same-sex behavior that they considered ritually unclean, degenerate, and/or harmful. But they seem to have been totally unaware of loving, supportive, same-sex committed relationships.

The authors did condemn what they regarded as sinful of sexual activities -- both opposite sex (between a man and a woman) and same-sex (between two men or between two women). Among the condemned practices in the Hebrew Scriptures (aka Old Testament) were:

The authors of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) condemned additional practices that they considered degenerate and/or harmful: 

Since the authors of the Bible were unaware of homosexual orientation, they could not conceive of loving and committed gay or lesbian relationships (i.e. same-sex marriage or SSM). Thus, the Bible is silent on same-sex marriage. All positive references to human sexuality relate only to heterosexual sex. All committed sexual relationships discussed in the Bible are heterosexual.

We can derive a Christian policy towards SSM for the 21st century by studying those positive passages that describe human sexuality and heterosexual marriage. We may then be able to infer what the Bible writers would have said about same-sex marriages, if they had known about them. This is not a unique process. Christians have to develop policies about other matters that were not mentioned specifically in the Bible: Contraceptives, movies, and abortion are examples.

Lifestyle options are available to gays and lesbians?

Heterosexuals, bisexuals and homosexuals all have the same three lifestyle options open to them. Gays and lesbians cah choose:

  1. Celibacy: They can choose to remain sexually inactive, single, and not within a committed relationship.
  2. Sexually active single: They can choose to remain single (i.e. outside a committed relationship) and engage in sexual activity with one or more individuals.
  3. Committed relationship: They try to find a loving partner of the same gender and enter into a committed, monogamous relationship. This can take a number of different forms:
    • They can simply "live together" without registering their partnership with the government.
    • The can register their partnership as a civil union with the government of Vermont or as a domestic partnership with the government of Nova Scotia in Canada. Scandanavian and other European countries also recognize and register such relationships.
    • They can simply marry a person of the same gender. As of mid-2001, this option is available only to residents of the Netherlands.

We will examine each option below, from a liberal Christian point of view.

How religious liberals interpret the Bible:

Christianity is a divided religion. Many view it as being composed of two quite separate faith groups -- one conservative and the other liberal. They share little more than the name of the religion and the text of the Bible.

The main cause of their disagreements is derived from their assumptions about the nature of the Bible. Liberal Christians typically do not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible as do conservatives. Further, they interpret much of the Bible, including the important creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2, to be religious myths. The seven days of creation, Adam, Eve, the snake, the Garden of Eden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the flood of Noah, the Tower of Babel, etc. never existed. The two creation stories were actually adapted from earlier Pagan religious myths of neighboring Middle Eastern countries. Although the content of these chapters has no grounding in reality, the myths have profound symbolic meaning.

Religious liberals also view ethical matters, including same-sex marriage, from the standpoint of human rights. One of the most intimate and important of all civil rights is the freedom to marry the person that you love and to whom you wish to make a lifetime commitment. With the exception of residents in the Netherlands, this is currently a special right, reserved only for heterosexuals. It is denied to gays and lesbians in North America and throughout most of the rest of the world.

From the first two chapters of Genesis, and other passages in the Bible, religious liberals can assemble a case in favor of promoting committed same-sex relationships and marriage for gays and lesbians.

Background material from the Book of Genesis:

One liberal interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis is as follows:

Conclusions about SSM from Genesis: 

Background material from the rest of the Bible:

It is important to realize that the Bible contains descriptions of many types of marriages and family structures. We have discovered eight. We may have missed some:

  1. The standard nuclear family: Genesis 2:24 describes how a man leaves his family of origin, and joins with a woman. They consummate the marriage, and live as a couple.
  2. Polygamous marriage of one man and more than one women. Solomon had to 700 women.
  3. Levirate Marriage: a woman would be forced to marry the brother of her deceased husband. This is potentially a highly abusive arrangement for the woman.
  4. A man, woman and female slave: This is also potentially highly abusive.
  5. A man, one or more wives, and concubines: Concubines were typically slaves kept for sexual purposes. They had a very low status compared to the wife/wives.
  6. A soldier and female prisoner of war: Women taken in captivity were often forced into concubinage. This would likely be an abusive relationship.
  7. A male rapist and his victim: Women who had been raped would be required to marry their rapist. This would almost certainly be an abusive relationship.
  8. A female slave assigned to a male slave: Slave owners could assign one of his female slaves to be wthe wife of one of his male slaves. The opportunity for abuse would also be great.

There are two biblical passages which condemn men involved in polygamous marriages: Solomon and Herod the Great. But the criticism did not relate to polygamy itself; it was over their choice of wives. Solomon chose many foreign women, who worshiped other Gods and Goddess. Herod chose his brother's wife.

Otherwise, these various marriage types were not criticized in the Bible. In fact, God showed his support for levirate marriage when he killed Onan for trying to avoid procreation.

Conclusions about SSM from the rest of the Bible: 

There are at least eight different types of marriages mentioned in the Bible. Most have a strong potential for sexual abuse. Marriage between two persons of the same gender is not one of the eight.

SSM bears little similarity to the many potentially abusive forms of of marriage. It is closest to the nuclear family described in Genesis 2:24: Two persons make a commitment to each other, leave their parent's home, have sex, and form a new family unit. One might infer that if the writers of the Bible had been familiar with the the concept of diversity of sexual orientation, and knew of loving, supportive, committed gay and lesbian couples, that they would have written about SSM and patterned it after the Genesis 2:24 model.

Background material from science:

Liberal Christians generally make use of the findings of medical, physical and social sciences when developing a position on moral and ethical issues. This supplements and sometimes replaces information that they obtain from the Bible.

There is a near consensus among human sexuality researchers and mental health therapists that:

From studies of heterosexual couples, we find that:

It seems reasonable to expect that homosexuals in committed relationships would have a greater life expectancy and a lower level of promiscuity than single gays and lesbians.

Finally, in the area of political science, religious liberals have traditionally been strong supporters of human rights. One of the most fundamental and important civil right is the freedom for a couple to declare their love and commitment before family, friends, and God, and to marry each other. In the U.S., this automatically assigns over 1,000 rights, privileges and obligations to the married couple. In the 19th century, there were many groups who were not allowed to marry in America. Until the end of the civil war, this included Afro-American slaves. Until 1967, inter-racial couples were also prohibited from marrying. Currently, gay and lesbian couples are the main remaining group that is prohibited from marrying. Many religious liberals feel that the right to marry should only be restricted on the basis of age or health considerations, not on the basis of sexual orientation.

Conclusions about SSM from science:

A substantial percentage of adult gays and lesbians seek to form loving, committed relationships with members of the same sex. Side benefits of SSM would include longer life span, lessening of promiscuity, increase in social stability. In a democracy, a group of citizens who are defined by their sexual orientation should not be prevented from exercising a primary human right: that of marrying the person that they love and to whom they have made a commitment.

Evaluation of option 1: Celibacy:

This is the first of three basic lifestyles open to homosexuals (and for that matter, for heterosexuals and homosexuals). The Bible contains a few references to celibacy:

It would seem that the Bible's message is that most people are happiest in a loving, supportive, committed relationship. However, if a person can handle celibacy, then the Bible promotes it as an alternative and perhaps a preferred option.

Evaluation of option 2: The sexually-active single:

The Hebrew Scriptures seem to have taken a very dim view of unmarried women who were sexually active:

There do not seem to be any comparable sanctions against males in the Hebrew Scriptures, except:

Other passages from Hebrew Scriptures:

Passages in the Christian Scriptures:

Even though many biblical references to fornication seem to discuss adultery, incest and idolatry, it would appear that some condemn sexual activities by single people.

The Bible appears to be strongly opposed to sexual activities by singles. There are a number of reasons why the Bible might have condemned type of behavior:

  1. It leads to the rapid spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STD). Recall that in biblical times, there were no effective methods of preventing the transmission of STDs, as there are today.

  2. STD's can lead not only to sterility, but to death. In biblical times there were no effective treatments to cure STDs, as there are today.

  3. Sexual activity by the vast majority of singles -- the heterosexuals in the society -- will often lead to pregnancy, childbirth, and single parenthood. Optimum raising of children in most cases requires two parents.

  4. Sexual activity on the part of single women lowered their value to their owners -- their fathers.

Evaluation of option 3: Committed relationship:

As described elsewhere, the Bible is silent about loving, committed homosexual  relationships.  In 1st century Palestine, the only same-sex behavior of which Paul was most likely familiar with were orgies in Pagan temples, and sexual molestation of children and youth (often slaves) by abusive male pedophiles.  In 1 Corinthians 7:2, he wrote: "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." (KJV). Those are fine alternatives to celibacy for a heterosexual man and woman. However, they were not applicable for gays and lesbians. So, we have to infer from passages on other topics what our belief and practice should be about committed, same-sex relationships.

Conclusions:

A religious liberal might thus conclude that gays and lesbians are called by God to either remain celibate or to enter into committed, loving, supported relationships -- exactly the same lifestyles as God expects of heterosexuals.

Critique of the above liberal analysis:

A conservative Christian might make the following points in rebuttal:

References:

  1. "Concubine," Smith's Bible Dictionary, at: http://www.studylight.org/dic/sbd/view.cgi?number=T1055
  2. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) has a home page at: http://www.narth.com/ As of 2001-JUL, NARTH can be reached at: 16633 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 1340, Encino, CA 91436-1801. Phone: (818) 789-4440. Fax: (805) 373-5084
  3. "Fornication," The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, at: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?db=*&term=fornications
  4. "Fornication," at: http://freedom2201.tripod.com/fornication.htm
  5. Fornication," Easton's Bible Dictionary, at: http://www.studylight.org/dic/ebd/view.cgi?number=T1376
  6. John Spong, "Living in Sin: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality," Harper San Francisco, (1990). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
  7. "HLI: Homosexual marriage to become Netherlands' next failed social experiment," Press release from Human Life International. Online at: http://gaylesissues.about.com/newsissues

Copyright © 2001 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2001-JUL-1
Latest update: 2001-NOV-11
Author: B.A. Robinson

 (ICRA) 

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