The History of Marriage: Poly & Gay

A Response to: Right? Marriage? Whatever do you mean?


Duane, on hearing how sympathetic you feel toward gays at the start of your post on "Marriage Rights," I was beginning to confuse you with a bleeding heart liberal. Then I reached the "but" and read what followed. 

You sympathize with gays but you aren't in favor of allowing gays to have the right to marry.  Your expression of sympathy for gays doesn't make your denying them parity with the dominant collective of heterosexuals more reasonable or palatable. Coming from a person who enjoys the privileged status of being among a dominant majority makes an expression of sympathy sound very condescending.  One can afford to be tolerant of those who are of an "inferior" class of people, so long as they are denied true equality.


The gay rights issue really highlights the inconsistent way that conservatives apply the "principles" they say that they live by. And then we see your remarkably uninformed comment, about the definition of marriage.  
You wrote:

“Marriage” has had a significant and restrictive definition since before the dawn of recorded history (one man and one woman).

This "definition" of marriage argument is at heart an argument from tradition.  Because something might have been a tradition doesn't make it "right."  We might recall that slavery was the tradition until the adoption of the 14th amendment made blacks citizens.


And that still didn't put an end to the unequal treatment of blacks.  The phrase "Separate but Equal" as a legal concept continued the underclass status of blacks until the Civil Rights movement forced and affirmed the concept of equal protection.  The idea of having a separate but equal label for gay marriage, ie. "Civil Union" is just another way to deny a minority equal protection.


Referencing a few verses from the Bible should dispel the notion that marriage has always been defined as between one man and one woman.

In Exodus 21:10, a man can marry an infinite amount of women without any limits to how many he can marry.
In 2 Samuel 5:13; 1 Chronicles 3:1-9, 14:3, King David had six wives and numerous concubines.
In 1 Kings 11:3, King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
In 2 Chronicles 11:21, King Solomon's son Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines.
In Deuteronomy 21:15 "If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons...."

Had you cared to do a little research, you would have found out that there is, in fact,  a long history of recorded same-sex unions around the world, going back to ancient times. It is believed that same-sex unions were celebrated in Ancient Greece, Rome and in some regions of China, such as Fujian, and at certain times in ancient European history.  
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So, you see our notions of what a marriage should be is purely a cultural construct.


Heterosexuals as a collective majority are not in the least hurt by allowing all individuals the right to marry the person of their choice. And I think all individuals should be able to decide on the significance of the issue. Does anyone have the right to tell another what is or should be significant to them.


Court decisions are a reflection of our culture, and occasioanally they help re-shape the legal framework in which we live.  But as we all know there are lots of laws that are still on the books but no one applies them, because people have moved on culturally.  The laws we care about are the ones that are actually enforced. 


And although you're right that the courts can't guarantee social equality, nor force people to change their minds about gays, the civil rights movement has accomplished what many thought was impossible. We no longer see blacks being forced to ride in the back of the bus, or to drink from a separate water fountain. And if you recall, it was the courts that forced the issue on those who were very reluctant to grant full equality and protection of  the law to blacks.


I think I should save a discussion of "affirmative action" and the concept of "hate crimes" for another post.


Just remember some of those rugged individuals that we admire as Americans are gay.