Behind the Headline: Christian groups to fight same-sex marriage

King Solomon and his wives

Behind the Headline: Christian groups to fight same-sex marriage

https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/christians-fight-gay-marriage/

"A pro-Christian legal advice centre based in London is supporting Jersey Christian groups to fight proposals to introduce same-sex marriage in the island. In a memo seen by Express, The Christian Legal Centre provides advice on opposing same-sex marriage laws and suggests potential 'conscience clauses' that would allow Christians to opt out of the new legislation on religious grounds."

"It's believed the document is intended to support local efforts to get the new laws amended, delayed or scrapped altogether before they are agreed by the States."

The memo says: “Marriage has for time immemorial, brought a woman and man together in an exclusive relationship, which was meant to be permanent, and with the purpose of rearing children. Because of the family centred nature of marriage, government has a compelling interest to ensure a healthy marriage culture. By redefining marriage to be merely a contract based primarily on love, and divorcing it from its biological, social and anthropological purposes, the result is not only a breakdown of the marriage culture but numerous other serious threats to our freedoms.”

I do wish these people would stop making assertions which are quite frankly false.

As Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder remarks:

“For Judaism and Jewish practice, everything eventually comes back to the Bible, and so there is no better place to begin. In both the narrative and genealogical sections of the Old Testament, there are numerous references to polygynous marriages, and there are quite a few Biblical laws and passages that presuppose the existence of polygamy.”

“While there are no biblical passages that seem to indicate an actual preference for polygamy, there are plenty of legal passages that acknowledge its existence and even approve of it. Aside from the many tales of multiple wives, the Bible assumes that female slaves will marry either their owner or his son, regardless of whether or not they are already married. Elsewhere, the text is explicit that ‘if a man (who is already married) marries another woman, he must not withhold (from his first wife) her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.’ The Torah also discusses what to do when bequeathing property to sons born from multiple wives in a situation where one wife is loved more than the other.”

“The rules of levirate marriage compel a man (in certain circumstances) to marry his childless brother's widow, regardless of whether or not the man is already married to his own wife. This is important because it is one of the only times (aside from the case of barrenness, above) that the taking of a second wife could be construed as actually fulfilling a commandment. The Children of Israel are warned that their king should not have too many wives, while Deuteronomy's discussion of the "beautiful captive" seems to be given in a polygamous context, as it too does not differentiate between married and unmarried soldiers.”(1)

The examples in the Biblical text are numerous:

“Throughout the Prophets and Writings we encounter Gideon (who had "many wives" ), King Saul (who had multiple wives, although no exact number is given , King David (who had seven wives before he reigned in Jerusalem, and then took additional wives and concubines when he left Hebron , King Solomon (seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines), King Mennasseh (at least one concubine), Shaharaim (three wives, unclear how many concurrent), King Rehoboam of Judah (eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and who sired twenty eight sons for whom he sought many wives ), Abia (fourteen wives and an unknown number of concubines), and King Jehoash (two wives)

To say therefore that “Marriage has for time immemorial, brought a woman and man together in an exclusive relationship” is to play fast and loose with history.

Time immemorial paints a very different picture, and it is really a much later development when monogamy becomes the rule for Jewish society.

“Overall, the materials available from the Second Temple period, both legal and homiletic, seem to reflect a growing attitude in favor of monogamy. Despite the fact that the majority of Jewish texts (with the exception of the Damascus Document had not outlawed the practice of polygamy at this time, it is likely that it was not common. This concept, of polygamy being legally valid but socially frowned upon, continued as a trend in the Jewish communities throughout the Talmudic period.”

So marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, while it existed in the ancient world, was not the only form of marriage.

None of this bears directly on same-sex marriage, which certainly did not exist in the ancient Jewish world, but it does show that what is deemed to constitute marriage is built on shaky foundations if it is attempted to built it on the Bible as fixed and immutable..

References:

The Story of Jewish Polygamy. Mark Goldfeder, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.

Mark Goldfeder is senior lecturer at Emory University School of Law, Spruill Family Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, and director of the Restoring Religious Freedom Project. He is also editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, and has served as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations.