Marriage as Sacrament versus State Defined

[DrTaffy]

A relationship between someone who would today be called a “Two Spirit” - a term invented in the 1990s by gay Amerindian activists - and a man or woman would not have been seen by the culture of the time as a same-sex “marriage”.

It was very clearly seen as a marriage, and was very clearly between two people who were not physically a man and a woman. So setting aside your very condescending and disrespectful attitude to Native American beliefs, how is this not a counterexample to the assertion that marriage has ‘always’ been defined as between a man and a woman?

I’ve provided Taffy with multiple citations from actual Roman law regarding marriage, noting that the parties are always qualified as male and female, yet he insists that because it was not specifically disallowed, it must have been allowed, and because it was not disallowed, it must have been common. By that logic, I was able to successfully prove that both Bigfoot and unicorns exised thent:

This, of course, is a very one sided and biased account of the discourse. I have never asserted what you claim, for example.

Rather I ask what right you have to force your view of marriage on me, and then challenge the response that marriage has ‘always’ meant one man and one woman. Not only is this assertion wholly unsupported, but your response to the counterexamples is further almost totally unsupported - the ‘citations’ you refer to are equally compatible with both points of view.

On the other hand, the absence of clear statements, especially in legal texts, that same sex weddings were invalid is at best hard to reconcile with your assertions, given that we know that such weddings took place farily commonly and at the highest level of Roman society. So a better analogy is that you assert that bigfoot exists and that I not only point out that this assertion is unsupported, but that if it were true we would expect to find Bigfoot stools, hair samples, corpses and fossil records, and do not. The burden of proof is on you, you have not met it, the burden of proof is not on me but I have provided plenty of support.

To drag this back to the original topic, the most important point (to me) from the Roman example is that the original root of ‘marriage’ referred to a civil, legal institution, not a religious or anatomical one. So why should the State be forced to officially endorse your personal religious views on marriage, rather than taking a more inclusive approach?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

To drag this back to the original topic, the most important point (to me) from the Roman example is that the original root of ‘marriage’ referred to a civil, legal institution, not a religious or anatomical one. So why should the State be forced to officially endorse your personal religious views on marriage, rather than taking a more inclusive approach?

It is not an endorsement of a personal religious view. The state only needs to recognize what has always been the common understanding of what civil marriage has always meant. This understanding is found in Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Atheists. So it is hardly fair to characterize it as a personal religious view.

 

[Monkey1976]

It was very clearly seen as a marriage, and was very clearly between two people who were not physically a man and a woman. So setting aside your very condescending and disrespectful attitude to Native American beliefs, how is this not a counterexample to the assertion that marriage has ‘always’ been defined as between a man and a woman?

How is it “condescending and disrespectful” to place them in their proper cultural context - namely, that these “marriages” were not between two men or two women as understood by the cultures where such things took place - as opposed to appropriating them to advance a purely modern and western pro-homosexual agenda?

This, of course, is a very one sided and biased account of the discourse. I have never asserted what you claim, for example.

Immediately below, you hang your argument on the, “absence of clear statements, especially in legal texts, that same sex weddings were invalid”.

Rather I ask what right you have to force your view of marriage on me, and then challenge the response that marriage has ‘always’ meant one man and one woman. Not only is this assertion wholly unsupported, but your response to the counterexamples is further almost totally unsupported - the ‘citations’ you refer to are equally compatible with both points of view.

If there was a possibility of a legal marriage incorporating two men or two women, how is it that such an arrangement is never dealt with? With the focus on the role of the paterfamilias in inheritance, such arrangements would have vastly complicated that role, and that complication would have been reflected in laws defining which member of these “marriages” was the legal paterfamilias.

On the other hand, the absence of clear statements, especially in legal texts, that same sex weddings were invalid is at best hard to reconcile with your assertions, given that we know that such weddings took place farily commonly and at the highest level of Roman society.

Commonly? We have only four examples of these ceremonies taking place. Of those examples, two are Nero and Elagabulus. The other two examples are from Martial and Juvenal’s writings (dating later than Nero), and are harshly critical and are mocking the uselessness of the ceremonies the male couples in each case performed. Not exactly a convincing argument for a practice that took place “fairly commonly”. What Nero established when he “married” Pythagoras in 64 (and “consummated” the union before the guests) was a religious precedent - a way to ask the gods to grant the couple the blessings that would have been granted to a couple who actually did possess conubium. This would have been entirely in keeping with the role of emperor as Pontifex Maximus - chief priest of the Roman gods. Given the lack of any mention of legal ramifications to a “marriage” between two men (or two women, for that matter), I would suggest that what we have is a purely religious “marriage”, with no legal impact. The mention by both Martial and Juvenal of how strictly the couples they mention adhered to the details of the ritual reinforces this - ritual was reserved to religion. The laws were much more lax in the form of marriage, so long as the legal requirements were met.

Your statement about it happening at the “highest level of Roman society” is correct, though - one cannot get any higher than the emperor. Too bad that the emperor’s behavior doesn’t establish law. If it did, then was Incitatus an actual Roman senator? There is nothing in Roman law forbidding a horse from being a senator, and the emperor decreed that he was.

So a better analogy is that you assert that bigfoot exists and that I not only point out that this assertion is unsupported, but that if it were true we would expect to find Bigfoot stools, hair samples, corpses and fossil records, and do not. The burden of proof is on you, you have not met it, the burden of proof is not on me but I have provided plenty of support.

On the contrary, you are asserting that same-sex “marriage” was a legally recognized entity in Rome which was “fairly common”. Can you provide any evidence for this beyond two emperors who are benchmarks for insanity and debauchery? Or two epigrams mocking the participants’ belief that anything was actually accomplished by going through such a ceremony?

To drag this back to the original topic, the most important point (to me) from the Roman example is that the original root of ‘marriage’ referred to a civil, legal institution, not a religious or anatomical one. So why should the State be forced to officially endorse your personal religious views on marriage, rather than taking a more inclusive approach?

First, because they aren’t just my “personal religious views” - they are also common to most Orthodox, Protestants, Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Shinto, Hindu, Inuit, Amazonian Native Animists, even (so far as we can tell) the Sentinelese, who have remained uncontacted because they tend to kill anyone who lands on their island and celebrate by pairing off (male and female) and copulating around the kill site.

Second, because the government derives a direct benefit from male/female couples that is impossible for male/male or female/female couples: New citizens to continue the workforce, tax base, society, and culture. The most stable environment for these new citizens? Parents joined in marriage. What comparable benefit can be offered by homosexual couples that would not only justify such a radical change, but cannot be most effectively achieved without it?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Rather I ask what right you have to force your view of marriage on me, and then challenge the response that marriage has ‘always’ meant one man and one woman. Not only is this assertion wholly unsupported, but your response to the counterexamples is further almost totally unsupported - the ‘citations’ you refer to are equally compatible with both points of view.

If you need more evidence that marriage has always meant man and woman, consider Western societies in the more recent past where historical records are much more plentiful. In those societies see certainly see an understanding of marriage as I have said. Is it reasonable to assume that a concept that commonly included homosexual unions (which I stll dispute) among the Romans, would spontaneously undergo such a drastic contraction as we see in all the civilizations that followed the Roman Empire? I think the burden of proof is on you since “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs”, and the claim that marriage has always meant unions irrespective of gender is an extraordinary claim.

 

[DrTaffy]

It is not an endorsement of a personal religious view. The state only needs to recognize what has always been the common understanding of what civil marriage has always meant. This understanding is found in Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Atheists. So it is hardly fair to characterize it as a personal religious view.

It is a personal ‘religious view’ in the sense that you hold it, and I do not. It is nowhere near universal. Indeed, according to many polls your view on this matter is in the minority in most western societies, even amongst catholics. Yet you feel that you have the right to impose this restriction on me, and on others who do not share your beliefs.

Why? How do you decide which of your beliefs I must follow? Am I equally at liberty to force my beliefs on you?

Say you had found your perfect mate, according to your beliefs. The ideal soulmate and life’s companion, according to you and Catholic belief. But you were told that you could not get married because your marriage would not be in accord with my beliefs - beliefs that you do not share and consider ridiculous. Why should you agree to that? Would you agree to that?

 

[DrTaffy]

How is it “condescending and disrespectful” to place them in their proper cultural context

It is condescending and disrespectful for you to try to dictate to Native Americans what their beliefs are, or to mock those beliefs.

• namely, that these “marriages” were not between two men or two women as understood by the cultures where such things took place - as opposed to appropriating them to advance a purely modern and western pro-homosexual agenda?

They were between two people who were physically men, or two people who were physically women. That the social contruct around this marriage was not identical to the modern concept of ‘gays’ or ‘lesbians’ does not change the fact that this explicitly disproves the assertion that marriage has always been between one man and one woman in all societies.

Immediately below, you hang your argument on the, “absence of clear statements, especially in legal texts, that same sex weddings were invalid”.

As you, immediately below, hang your argument on the, “absence of clear statements, especially in legal texts, that same sex weddings were valid”

If there was a possibility of a legal marriage incorporating two men or two women, how is it that such an arrangement is never dealt with?.

The fact remains that I nowhere made the assertion that you claim I did.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

It is a personal ‘religious view’ in the sense that you hold it, and I do not. It is nowhere near universal. Indeed, according to many polls your view on this matter is in the minority in most western societies, even amongst catholics. Yet you feel that you have the right to impose this restriction on me, and on others who do not share your beliefs.

There are two different issues that are being considered together here. While these two issues are related, it is worthwhile to mention that they are distinct. Those two issues are:

1. Should civil recognition of same-sex unions be allowed, with all the rights and privileges normally ascribed to marriages to the opposite sex?
2. Has the common understanding of the word “marriage” always included same-sex unions?

I thought you and I had been discussing issue #2. But your citation of majority support for gay marriage in many places shows that you are thinking of issue #1. I submit that while you might get a majority of people to support issue #1, it will not be because they agree with issue #2. Rather, their support is due to a generous nature that wishes for no one to be denied a benefit. Those that support issue #1 do so, realizing that this is something new, something unprecedented. But they still want to support it anyway. I am not passing judgement right now on that decision. I can see how people of good faith can be on either side of that argument. But I cannot see how very many people would say that marriage has always meant to include gay marriage.

 

[Monkey1976]

It is condescending and disrespectful for you to try to dictate to Native Americans what their beliefs are, or to mock those beliefs.

How is it dictating or mocking to oppose falsehoods presented as “authentic” Amerindian culture?

They were between two people who were physically men, or two people who were physically women. That the social contruct around this marriage was not identical to the modern concept of ‘gays’ or ‘lesbians’ does not change the fact that this explicitly disproves the assertion that marriage has always been between one man and one woman in all societies.

For the cultures where the individuals were recognized, they were never understood to be male or female. Cultures like the Navajo and Lakota subscribed to a view where the nature of something included both physical and spiritual. If those two were in agreement about an individual’s sex, then they were seen as male or female. If they were not in agreement, then we have the hwame/etc. These individuals only ever “married” males or females - never each other. We also have evidence that when they did “marry” someone of the same physical sex, it was still not seen on the same level as marriage between male and female. For example, the child of a woman who “wed” a physically-female hwame would still belong to the biological father’s “clan”. This was not the case when a woman married another man - her children would become part of the “clan” of her new husband. At best, you might be able to claim that these were “civil unions” allowed for individuals that would today identify as “transgender”. To claim them as a historical example of same-sex “marriage” is at best misinformed, and highly insulting at worst.

As you, immediately below, hang your argument on the, “absence of clear statements, especially in legal texts, that same sex weddings were valid”

When there is a clear statement of what is required for a marriage to be legal, and that statement explicitly names male and female as one of those requirements, then an exception would require a clear statement. As you seem reluctant to accept my interpretation of the law, might I offer the opinion of the John and Teresa D’Arms Distinguished Professor of Classics and Roman Law at the University of Michigan: Prof. Bruce W. Frier. His paper on this exact subject is freely available here.

The fact remains that I nowhere made the assertion that you claim I did.

Perhaps not in so many words, but your entire argument hinges on the “weddings” of two madmen and a “lack” of any statements invalidating such unions in Roman law. Take the following analogy: Nowhere in Roman law is it forbidden to name a horse as consul. Caligula actually did so with Incitatus. Does it then follow that such an appointment was not only perfectly acceptable under Roman law, but a common occurrence? Or is it an example of a nigh-perfect illustration of the axiom that absolute power corrupts absolutely?

 

[DrTaffy]

I thought you and I had been discussing issue #2. But your citation of majority support for gay marriage in many places shows that you are thinking of issue #1.

I would have thought that the title of this thread put us firmly in issue #1 territory!

However, if you were discussing issue #2, I understand your arguments even less. Asserting that the Sifra was lying about same sex marriages in Egypt, for example, does nothing to dispel the fact that the author of the Sifra felt that “man would marry a man, and a woman would marry a woman” had a very clear meaning. So everyone at the time understood what he meant. As everyone today understands what is meant by it, despite contemptuous remarks here about square circles.

I submit that while you might get a majority of people to support issue #1, it will not be because they agree with issue #2.

Certainly many people are unaware of the historical examples of same sex marriage - but I disagree with your analysis of why so many people disagree with your position. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the appeal to tradition is a fallacy, even if you don’t know it by that name. Most people simply feel that it is wrong to allow the religious right to impose their definition of marriage on same sex couples and those religions who support them, and the fact that you have been doing so for centuries is no argument in favour of your point of view.

 

[DrTaffy]

How is it dictating or mocking to oppose falsehoods presented as “authentic” Amerindian culture?

How is it not dictating or mocking when the ‘falsehoods’ you are opposing are those presented by the Native Americans themselves as to what their beliefs are?

For the cultures where the individuals were recognized, they were never understood to be male or female. Cultures like the Navajo and Lakota subscribed to a view where the nature of something included both physical and spiritual. If those two were in agreement about an individual’s sex, then they were seen as male or female. If they were not in agreement, then we have the hwame/etc. These individuals only ever “married” males or females - never each other.

Leaving aside the fact that two spirited individuals were often granted rights that applied only to members of their physical gender, the fact remains that you still have a marriage that is between two members of the same physical sex, and which was not (even according to you) seen by the tribe as a marriage between a man and a woman. So the assertion that marriage has always been solely between a man and a woman still fails.

When there is a clear statement of what is required for a marriage to be legal, and that statement explicitly names male and female as one of those requirements, then an exception would require a clear statement.

But you do not have a clear statement that marriage must be between one man and one woman. The latin is nearer to an english phrase saying that marriage can only be between roman men and roman women. It can be taken the way you want to read it, but a rather ambiguous way of putting it, or just a way of saying (in the original latin) that only roman citizens can get married.

If your interpretation were so clear, how do you think a respected professor such as John Boswell could have asserted that legal Same Sex marriages did occur in ancient Rome?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I would have thought that the title of this thread put us firmly in issue #1 territory!

I was responding to your argument that the common understand of “marriage” has always included homosexual ones. I was not the first to depart from the pure thread title, although I think the departure was a reasonable one.

However, if you were discussing issue #2, I understand your arguments even less. Asserting that the Sifra was lying about same sex marriages in Egypt, for example, does nothing to dispel the fact that the author of the Sifra felt that “man would marry a man, and a woman would marry a woman” had a very clear meaning. So everyone at the time understood what he meant.

Understanding what someone means when they use a word outside of its common meaning is nothing extraordinary. We humans do that quite well. Even if someone has never heard of such a thing as a homosexual marriage, that person would quickly imagine what generalization is needed to make the word apply and thus understand what the writer intended. That does not prove that the readers had ever considered applying the word “marriage” to homosexual unions before.

The very fact that the statement you quoted appears in the Sifra is evidence of the uncommon nature of homosexual marriage. There is an old saying in the newspaper business: “Dog Bites Man” is not news. “Man Bites Dog” is. If the historical understanding of marriage was as you say, there would be no need to report on that usage in the Sifra.

Certainly many people are unaware of the historical examples of same sex marriage - but I disagree with your analysis of why so many people disagree with your position. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the appeal to tradition is a fallacy, even if you don’t know it by that name.

It seems that the tradition argument being a fallacy hangs on the point of the historical inclusionary meaning of “marriage” - a point which you have so far failed to make convincingly.

Most people simply feel that it is wrong to allow the religious right to impose their definition of marriage on same sex couples and those religions who support them, and the fact that you have been doing so for centuries is no argument in favour of your point of view.

I already addressed this point when I said that the definition of marriage has been common among people of no particular religious affiliation - a point that you have yet to counter. This is hardly what one would expect of a definition that was imposed by a few religious fanatics.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Leaving aside the fact that two spirited individuals were often granted rights that applied only to members of their physical gender, the fact remains that you still have a marriage that is between two members of the same physical sex…

Even if the tribe did grant permission for such unions, it was clearly a special kind of permission, not the same as when permission is given for a man to marry a woman. This supports that idea that a major distinction existed in the minds of the people - a distinction which the current movement toward “marriage equality” is intending to erase. We would be going beyond what the Native Americans did. So don’t look to their history for support.

The latin is nearer to an english phrase saying that marriage can only be between roman men and roman women. It can be taken the way you want to read it, but a rather ambiguous way of putting it, or just a way of saying (in the original latin) that only roman citizens can get married.

Did the writer of that law not know of the Latin word “civis”, which means citizens? If the gender of the participants was of no consequence to the law, why would the writer go to all that trouble to list Roman men and Roman women?

If your interpretation were so clear, how do you think a respected professor such as John Boswell could have asserted that legal Same Sex marriages did occur in ancient Rome?

John Boswell’s work is highly controversial. It would be a mistake to infer that historians generally agree with his conclusions.

 

[Monkey1976]

How is it not dictating or mocking when the ‘falsehoods’ you are opposing are those presented by the Native Americans themselves as to what their beliefs are?

When those “beliefs” are something invented to further a particular agenda, then they’re hardly in a position to claim offense. Or should we have uncritically accepted the claims of the Ahnenerbe? After all, they were Germans speaking on German beliefs.

Leaving aside the fact that two spirited individuals were often granted rights that applied only to members of their physical gender, the fact remains that you still have a marriage that is between two members of the same physical sex, and which was not (even according to you) seen by the tribe as a marriage between a man and a woman. So the assertion that marriage has always been solely between a man and a woman still fails.

Good points. I will modify my claim to this: Marriage has never been understood as existing between two persons of the same sex before AD1999. Unions of hwame and men or women were still seen as something distinct and different from the union of male and female.

But you do not have a clear statement that marriage must be between one man and one woman. The latin is nearer to an english phrase saying that marriage can only be between roman men and roman women. It can be taken the way you want to read it, but a rather ambiguous way of putting it, or just a way of saying (in the original latin) that only roman citizens can get married.

Specifically, Roman law only recognized marriages between male Roman citizens and female Roman citizens. In some cases, it was possible for a male Roman citizen to get permission to marry a female Latin.

If your interpretation were so clear, how do you think a respected professor such as John Boswell could have asserted that legal Same Sex marriages did occur in ancient Rome?

Given that this is the same man who claimed the rite of Adelphopoiesis was “proof” that the Eastern Churches practiced same-sex “marriage”, combined with his history of gay activism, I would question anything this man said regarding history if it involves homosexual activity.

 

[DrTaffy]

When those “beliefs” are something invented to further a particular agenda, then they’re hardly in a position to claim offense.

It is only your assertion that these “beliefs” (why the scare quotes?) were invented.

In short you demand absolute respect for your beliefs but feel no remorse or reluctance about showing utter contempt for the beliefs of others.

Good points. I will modify my claim to this: Marriage has never been understood as existing between two persons of the same sex before AD1999. Unions of hwame and men or women were still seen as something distinct and different from the union of male and female.

And what is your evidence for this assertion. Many histories such as Francisco Lopez de Gomara’s ‘History of the Indies’ refer to same sex marriages - so what evidence do you have to accuse them of lying?

Specifically, Roman law only recognized marriages between male Roman citizens and female Roman citizens.

Just repeating the assertion does not make it true.

Given that this is the same man who claimed the rite of Adelphopoiesis was “proof” that the Eastern Churches practiced same-sex “marriage”, combined with his history of gay activism, I would question anything this man said regarding history if it involves homosexual activity.

So your only answer is to slander a respected academic?

 

[DrTaffy]

I was responding to your argument that the common understand of “marriage” has always included homosexual ones.

I have not made that argument. That some cultures have understood marriage to include same sex couples is easy to verify, trying to prove that all have done so would be impossible.

Understanding what someone means when they use a word outside of its common meaning is nothing extraordinary. …] That does not prove that the readers had ever considered applying the word “marriage” to homosexual unions before.

But I have supplied many examples of where the author did apply the word ‘marriage’ to homosexual unions. QED.

The very fact that the statement you quoted appears in the Sifra is evidence of the uncommon nature of homosexual marriage.

So if the papers are reporting that Australia trounced England at cricket, then according to your logic:
a) they must be lying
b) this must be a rare event


I would suggest that there are two choices about the passage in the Sifra: the most obvious is that it is the truth, especially as we know that same sex marriages were a tradition in the Siwa Oasis until very recently. Alternatively, even if it was a lie it was clearly a lie that the author considered credible. So the concept of same sex marriage cannot have been unknown at the time. After all, why warn against a practice if it is unknown and non-existent?

It seems that the tradition argument being a fallacy hangs on the point of the historical inclusionary meaning of “marriage” - a point which you have so far failed to make convincingly.

Um…no. Really, no. In fact I can only make sense of that sentence by assuming that you don’t know what I mean by a fallacy, or specifically the fallacy of appeal to tradition.

Further it is not up to me to make the argument. This is about the anti-gay marriage lobby trying to use the appeal to tradition to justify their position, based on the assertion that ‘marriage has always been solely between a man and a woman’.

So as far as the debate goes, the burden of proof is on you to support the assertion that ‘marriage has always been solely between a man and a woman’, something that you have failed to even try to do. I am just curious as to how you justify this unsupported assertion in the face of the evidence - the answer being apparently to assert without evidence that anything contrary to your preconceptions is false or ‘doesnt count’ for various reasons.

I already addressed this point when I said that the definition of marriage has been common among people of no particular religious affiliation - a point that you have yet to counter.

I didn’t counter it because it made no sense. So what if some atheists or other religious groups also oppose same sex marriage? The fact that those trying to force their personal beliefs on others (who do not share those beliefs) are not solely members of a particular group in no way prevents their behaviour from being wrong.

 

[DrTaffy]

Even if the tribe did grant permission for such unions, it was clearly a special kind of permission, not the same as when permission is given for a man to marry a woman.

Yet another unsupported assertion.

We would be going beyond what the Native Americans did. So don’t look to their history for support.

Hey, I’m not invoking the appeal to tradition, that fallacy is all yours. I cite the case of the North Americans only as an example to counter the assertion that marriage has always been between opposite sexes only.

Did the writer of that law not know of the Latin word “civis”, which means citizens? If the gender of the participants was of no consequence to the law, why would the writer go to all that trouble to list Roman men and Roman women?

Again, I am not citing this passage as evidence that same sex marriages took place or were legally recognised. I am pointing out that this passage, which is the only feeble attempt at evidence that same sex marriages were not legal, is woefully inadequate and perfectly compatible with legal same sex marriages.

Say rather, if same sex marriages were illegal, and given that we know same sex weddings took place, why did the author not explicitly say that conubium was solely between one man and one woman? Or even explicitly say that same sex marriages were invalid?

John Boswell’s work is highly controversial. It would be a mistake to infer that historians generally agree with his conclusions.

I didn’t say that all historians agreed, rather that if the case were as clear cut as Monkey seems to argue he would never have been able to publich such opinions.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

But I have supplied many examples of where the author did apply the word ‘marriage’ to homosexual unions. QED.

Let’s recall the sequence in this argument:

You:

[From the Sifra]: A man would marry a man, and a woman would marry a woman, a man would marry a woman and her daughter, a woman would be married to two men.

Me:

As for the Sifra, as I am sure you know, it was a Israelite commentary on the behavior of a foreign and despised land. It was meant to show the Israelites what to avoid. As such, it is far from a dispassionate and historically accurate telling of the history of the Egyptian people. It is all too likely that the language in the Sifra was chosen to emphasize and exaggerate the depravity that the author felt needed to be avoided…

You:

Asserting that the Sifra was lying about same sex marriages in Egypt, for example, does nothing to dispel the fact that the author of the Sifra felt that “man would marry a man, and a woman would marry a woman” had a very clear meaning. So everyone at the time understood what he meant.

Me:

Understanding what someone means when they use a word outside of its common meaning is nothing extraordinary. …] That does not prove that the readers had ever considered applying the word “marriage” to homosexual unions before.

You:

But I have supplied many examples of where the author did apply the word ‘marriage’ to homosexual unions. QED

In this line I was attacking one specific part of your argument. So I assume when you say “the author” you mean the author of the Sifra. I don’t know what other quotes you have from the Sifra, but your last quote here doesn’t make sense in that it does not address my point listed just above it. Yes, the author of the Sifra was using the word “marriage” here to refer to homosexual unions. But the way he used it in this context does not imply that the Jews knew of such things before. The context is as moral instruction. The Jews were well aware of homosexual acts. That had been going on forever. But when the author links those acts to a socially approved institution comparable to regular marriage in Egypt, he is using that language to emphasize the extent of the depravity in Egypt. It would be wrong to equate the author of the Sifra with a modern-day investigative journalist who travels to Egypt, interviews important people, and reports in an objective manner. The standards of journalism were totally different then, and the purpose of the Sifra in particular was not as an objective newspaper. For all these reasons, it is not a reliable source for determining what was socially sanctioned in ancient Egypt. I know this does not address all the points you made from other sources, but if you are going to continue to use the Sifra as support for your position, please address my objection directly.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I would suggest that there are two choices about the passage in the Sifra: the most obvious is that it is the truth, especially as we know that same sex marriages were a tradition in the Siwa Oasis until very recently. Alternatively, even if it was a lie it was clearly a lie that the author considered credible. So the concept of same sex marriage cannot have been unknown at the time.

That does not logically follow. The statement was credible only because it was imaginable, not because it was known to be a fact.

After all, why warn against a practice if it is unknown and non-existent?

The author was not warning against homosexual marriage per se. He was warning against adopting the values of the Egyptians. By citing what would have seemed an extreme depravity to the readers, the author shows what can happen if those foreign values are adopted.

So as far as the debate goes, the burden of proof is on you to support the assertion that ‘marriage has always been solely between a man and a woman’, something that you have failed to even try to do. I am just curious as to how you justify this unsupported assertion in the face of the evidence - the answer being apparently to assert without evidence that anything contrary to your preconceptions is false or ‘doesn’t count’ for various reasons.

Exactly. And if you think those “various reasons” are invalid, then attack them one by one. I took the time to make them one by one. You shouldn’t dismiss them all as a group just because they are “various”.

So what if some atheists or other religious groups also oppose same sex marriage? The fact that those trying to force their personal beliefs on others (who do not share those beliefs) are not solely members of a particular group in no way prevents their behaviour from being wrong.

The observation that marriage is understood to be something between a man and a woman by religious and non-religious alike does counter the implication that you were making that this definition was from a narrow group (the religious right).

 

[Monkey1976]

It is only your assertion that these “beliefs” (why the scare quotes?) were invented.

"S. Lang:

I also learned that the term “two-spirit” (or “two-spirited” has come into general use in the urban Native American gay and lesbian communities. According to Anguksuaq (in press) , the term originated in 1989 during an international/intertribal gathering of gay and lesbian Native Americans

In short you demand absolute respect for your beliefs but feel no remorse or reluctance about showing utter contempt for the beliefs of others.

What I demand respect for is fact as opposed to the purposeful and deliberate distortion of a culture’s belief system to further a political agenda. I do indeed have contempt for those who do so, especially when they should know better.

And what is your evidence for this assertion. Many histories such as Francisco Lopez de Gomara’s ‘History of the Indies’ refer to same sex marriages - so what evidence do you have to accuse them of lying?

From a European point of view, he was correct. From the culture’s point of view, these were “marriages” between two distinct genders that were still not seen as equivalent to a male-female marriage (as seen in the issue of childrens’ clan membership).

Just repeating the assertion does not make it true.

For it to be read as allowing marriage between two male or two female Roman citizens, one would have to ignore the fact that the Latin clearly refers to a “male Roman citizen” and “female Roman citizen”. Have you found a reference in Roman law establishing conubim between Romanus and Romanus?

So your only answer is to slander a respected academic?

His claim regarding Adelphopoiesis is a flat-out falsehood to further his agenda, in which he had a direct personal stake. When a professor is shown to have lied in order to prove his thesis, that pretty much removes the status of “respected academic”, as well as calling all of the professor’s conclusions on the same topic into question.

 

[DrTaffy]

Let’s recall the sequence in this argument:

That is a heavily edited ‘sequence’ - specifically you leave out your post #46 in which you appear to say that you are only arguing that the word ‘marriage’ has never been applied to same sex couples before modern times.

So at that point all the cases I cited, including Martial, Juvenal, Cicero, the Sifra, and many many historians referring to Native Americans, all use ‘marriage’ in the context of same sex couples. QED.

And again, your ‘objection’ to the Sifra as an example of same sex marriage consists entirely of an unsupported assertion that the author must be lying. You have produced no evidence to support this.

So let’s go to the real start of this sequence:

Latin roots aside, from the beginning of recorded history, “marriage”, or whatever word is used to mean the same thing in other languages, has always meant a union of a man and a woman. It has never meant anything more general than that, except in metaphors, as in saying “This hamburger is the perfect marriage of beef and bun!”.

(emphasis added)

This assertion is not only entirely unsupported, but your only response to my counterexamples is to assert (without any evidence) that they either do not ‘count’ or that the original authore must have been lying.