Marriage Tradition Challenged?

[matrimcauthon]

I found this video in the comments on Youtube (that means it must be true ) and am curious as to what thoughts everyone might have on it (warning, its clean but VERY pro same sex marriage). Outside of people like Solomon I just never really thought about the evolution of how marriage was seen over the Church/Jewish history.

youtube.com/watch?v=90_UlLSz6Nc#t=463

I am bringing it up though because I am having a difficult time pondering to myself refutations of it. Obviously a lot of it is personal opinions and isn’t reflective of the general church understandings of marriages etc. Polygyny I am having a particularly difficult time refuting as there was so much of it with the patriarchs and kings (though the Bible usually immediately follows with the “why its a bad idea” events that follow). While Adam and Eve are very good examples of the 1 to 1 relationship and a clearly heterosexual nature of marriage, and Deuteronomy 17:17 warns kings not to stash away many wives like treasure there really isn’t much to go on. Later, Christ is clear in Matthew 19:19 and more so in Mark 10:6-7 it is very clear that it is between a man and a woman. It seems God was elevating peoples knowledge of Himself and what is good over time and the NT especially is quite clear on homosexual relationships which is enough for me. I am just wondering what a good response to the argument that “marriage has been such a fluid entity that there is no argument based on prior practices to support a 1 man 1 woman for life fact that we (rightly) recognize today”?

Thanks for your thoughts

 

[nodito]

I am just wondering what a good response to the argument that “marriage has been such a fluid entity that there is no argument based on prior practices to support a 1 man 1 woman for life fact that we (rightly) recognize today”?

Thanks for your thoughts

I’m with my kids now, so I didn’t want to watch the video you linked to, but did want to address your question.

I’ve never been fond of the “it’s always been this way” line of argument, for anything, especially sensitive moral topics. In general, I think it better to rely less on tradition and more on reason. Does same sex “marriage” accord with natural law? Is it good for children? Does it benefit communities the way stable heterosexual marriages do? Is it any different from other practices we understand to be wrong?

If I’m ever in a situation where I need to defend my position on traditional marriage, I find I get farther by appealing to logic rather than history.

 

[Elizium23]

I have found Discussing Marrage to be an invaluable resource for sharpening my arguments for traditional marriage, especially those rooted in non-religious reasoning. Here is one argument that may help you: The Argument from Marital Norms.

How might same-sex marriage hurt marriage at large?

Just as moral belief systems inform law, laws also inform and shape public conscience, and changes to social policy can have cascading effects in terms of what the public believes to be right and good about marriage. For example, the implementation of no-fault divorce has cultivated norms of divorce and serial marriages, with tremendous costs today.

Formalizing same-sex unions as marriage will make the revisionist view of marriage the explicit policy of the state, and this will further affect crucial marriage norms permanence, exclusivity, and fidelity. It signals to the public that fathers and mothers are interchangeable, and therefore ultimately expendable. This will affect the ways in which marriage partners live out those norms. We don’t have to disapprove of same-sex relationships to understand the costs of using marriage law as the vehicle for normalizing them.

 

[DebChris]

I haven’t watched the video, but am familiar with the arguments. St. Pope John Paul II does address the issue of polygamy in his Theology of the Body.
I prefer not to use the term Traditional Marriage for the very fact that polygamy has been practiced throughout the ages. Yes, it can be found in the Bible and was practiced by King David and others who offered as examples of those who followed the Lord wholeheartedly. King Solomon is criticized because he strayed into worshiping the gods of his many foreign wives.
What the Theology of the Body does is constantly return to the beginning, to the creation of man and woman. It is in the monogamous relationship between man and woman that each compliments the other, and that their equal dignity is revealed. Man sees himself reflected in woman, and it is only after her creation that he realizes that he has been created in the likeness and image of God.
The Fall distorts our image of self and of relationships. Distrust has entered the picture. Just as divorce was allowed due to “hardness of the heart,” polygamy came about because of a distorted vision of the relationship between man and woman. The Bible does not always show people acting as they should. It shows people acting as they did.