Prop 8 and gay marriage

[Beajay]

Does anyone know if any time in history homosex has been elevated to equal heterosexual marriage? And if so what culture or society did this and what was the outcome on the culture?

Are we moderns doing something political with ourselves that is unknown in consequences?

 

[Lutheranteach]

Rome, Greece, Native- American tribes, “Boston Marriages” of the late 1800s and well into the last and this century.

 

[PatrickSebast]

Does anyone know if any time in history homosex has been elevated to equal heterosexual marriage? And if so what culture or society did this and what was the outcome on the culture?

Are we moderns doing something political with ourselves that is unknown in consequences?

There is clear evidence of it being accepted in different cultures, and claims that it may have even been elevated to a relatively respectable level at times, but we honestly can’t tell THAT much about such a specific of any culture before the time of the printing press. Records exist sure, but they are extremely limited, and it wasn’t like they were written specifically to inform future cultures on how their society worked. History is a lot of “best guess” stuff. Regardless pretty much every major society we know of fell to cultural absorption, war, disease, famine, or major economic problems. Even if gay marriage were to somehow cause one of these things it would be such a complex chain of events that no historian could ever hope to really grasp it.