It wasn’t that long ago that the whole subject of “Biblical Marriage” was being discussed in the media and internet. The result of all the hoopla involving legalizing same-sex marriage died down as the numbers of those who are now in favor of it hit critical mass and now the majority of the country is in support of legalizing same-sex marriages and all the benefits that come with it. But then the whole Dan Cathy and the Chick-fil-A thing reared its ugly head again and it’s back on the radar screen. So let’s go over this again and hopefully more people of reason, that is those who do not ascribe themselves to Christian Conservative-Tea Party ideology, will support the right side of history.

You may recall this chart that came out several months ago in response to what “Biblical Marriage” actually is:

The right loves to cite Deuteronomy 22 regarding marriage. It has some interesting things in it, some things that many on the right enjoy, like the prohibition of cross dressing (Deuteronomy 22:5). In general, it supports a great number of fundamentalist thinking they are proud of, as long as it isn’t applied to them, otherwise they may have to get stoned, and not in the way they would enjoy.

Let us examine the chart above because that is a synopsis of just about everything the Bible has to say about marriage. If the Bible is the word of God, then marriage must, according to those like Dan Cathy, follow these tenets.

Genesis 2:24 says that wives are subordinate to their husbands. It bans interfaith marriages and cites that marriages are generally to be arranged by others, not based on “romantic love.” And by the way, if your wife cannot prove her virginity prior to the ceremony, she is to be stoned to death. Also, the Bible doesn’t support the “Nuclear Family” of one man, one women. It cites that a man can have numerous wives and concubines. It actually supports the Mormon view of polygamy. So Mitt Romney has nothing to be ashamed of with his family history and should proudly talk about it at his next meeting with the Christian Fundamentalists.

Genesis 16 says a man can acquire his wife’s property including her slaves for his own. I’m sure this was really big in the Conservative Christian deep South culture leading up to the civil war. Today I guess men can have their way with the baby-sitters that their wives retain.

Genesis 38:6-10 says that a woman who is widowed without having a child must marry and submit herself sexually to her brother-in-law. After all, women are only here to procreate.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 says that if a man rapes a virgin, she must marry him and he must pay her father 50 shekels of silver to the property loss. Again, in the Bible women are not people so much as property controlled first by their fathers and later by the men they are sold to.

Numbers 31:1-18 and Deuteronomy 21:11-14 says that male soldiers can take virgin prisoners of war and have their way with them. The wives must submit. Maybe this is why the right is opposed to women in the armed forces. Logically if they were to take male virgin prisoners……

Exodus 21:4 says that slave owners can assign male slaves to female slaves who must submit and help raise stock. Now in the corporate servitude world people like the Koch’s want to create here, this could get interesting.

Note how all the above passages relate to the Old Testament. What about the New Testament? What did Jesus himself say about marriage? Well, in Matthews he really didn’t say much about marriage as instead about divorce. Jesus preached more against divorce unless unfaithfulness was involved. He didn’t say a word about how many wives a man could have or anything regarding same-sex marriage. Not a word about homosexuality.

Of course nobody even asked him about that. So who knows what his views could have been? As a Jewish Rabbi, he knew his Torah and knew about what was cited above. So he knew that polygamy was acceptable. It was going around in Israel during his lifetime. He knew that men could have their way with their slaves, it was also going on at that time. And you know what else was going on at that time? Homosexuality. It existed and was acceptable in Greece and Rome and other parts of the empire. Jesus said nothing about it. If it was that important to him that it must have been forbidden, you would think there would be something there citing a position.

Marriage, or the union of a couple or group of people, long predates the Bible, Torah or any of today’s faiths. Unions exist because there are clear social advantages to having them. They are not, and never were exclusive to any faith. So why should someone’s religious faith interfere with an arrangement that long predates their religious tenets? If a church doesn’t want to sanctify a same-sex marriage under their roof, then that’s fine. It’s them exercising their religious freedom. But that couple should have an absolute right to establish a legal joining, whether you want to call it marriage or civil union, as long as the legal protections of that union are absolutely the same for any heterosexual couple. I don’t see where semantics really matter, only the union of two people taking care of themselves and possibly others with no legal restrictions because somebody has an outdated and harmful interpretation of a book that was written by man for the men of their age, not ours.

Same-Sex marriages hurt no one, destroys no heterosexual marriages unless someone in the union is in the closet (Marcus Bachmann). All the studies brought up to say so have been proven by scientific method to simply be full of shit with no basis in fact or reality. Again, same-sex marriage doesn’t hurt, but it certainly helps those involved.