Redefining Marriage

The recent rulings by the US Supreme Court marked a confusing day for the institution of marriage in America. The decisions are complex and will take days for legal analysts to understand the full implications. What we do know is that both good and bad have come from the court’s decisions.

In the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) decision, the court approved federal benefits for same-sex couples who are married in states which have adopted homosexual marriages.

In the California Proposition Eight case, the Supreme Court did not overturn the 32 other states that have defined marriage through an act of direct democracy by amending their state constitutions. The Court also did not force one standard upon all the states but instead respected the rights of states to define marriage. Thankfully, the Court did not create a new sweeping right of same sex marriage and force that upon the rest of the country as many thought they may have done.

One of the things the Supreme Court also did was to open the door for dialog about marriage and other familial arrangements. As a Christian, the Court has challenged me to re-examine marriage and other familial arrangements in the Bible.

In the Bible, marriage contracts and arrangements come in different shapes and forms across cultures. For instance, in Genesis we read where Abraham got married to Sarah, the daughter of his father, but not the daughter of his mother (Genesis 20:12). In addition, Abraham’s son Isaac, got married to his first cousin (Genesis 24:15). Sometime later, Jacob, Isaac’s son, got married to two sisters, both his cousins (Genesis 29:10).

These practices describe what anthropologists often refer to as polygeny (births through ancestral relationships) and tribal endogamy (marrying only within one’s tribe). Interestingly, many of the marriage customs of American aborigines run parallel with those of the biblical patriarchs. 

Both in Genesis and later Old Testament texts, polygamy (having many wives) was also practiced. However, in the New Testament, the apostle Paul expected church leaders to be the husbands of one wife. In attempting to establish a norm for marriage, Paul invited the young Christians to consider the model of Adam and Eve.

That model was one man with one wife. In Matthew 19, Jesus made a similar reference to the Adam and Eve pattern. He acknowledged the accommodations in marriage, but stressed the original intent was to bring together male and female.

Some analysts would want us to believe that the Supreme Court was similarly acknowledging accommodations in different forms of marriage. With this I must disagree. Nowhere in the Bible do we find accommodations including same sex marriage as a viable alternative. Every familial accommodation involved males and females. Same sex relationships were always renounced as deviant.

Even outside of Jewish society, same-sex relationships were rarely viewed as something noble. No culture or society in history has flourished because it welcomed the practice of same sex relationships. However, the practice of heterosexual marriage, the union of husband and wife is timeless, universal and particularly special because children flourish best with a mother and a father. Ninety-four percent of countries worldwide affirm marriage as the union of a man and a woman. In addition, every major world religion affirms marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

For such reasons I will agree with John Stemberger, President and General Counsel of the Florida Family Policy Council, when he said “no court decision or public opinion poll can affect that which is evident in biology, logic, common sense and the collective wisdom of human history.”

Similar sentiments were shared by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York. He contends, “Our culture has taken for granted for far too long what human nature, experience, common sense and God’s wise design all confirm: the difference between a man and a woman matters, and the difference between a mom and a dad matters. Marriage is the only institution that brings together a man and a woman for life, providing any child who comes from that union with the secure foundation of a mother and a father.”

Now that the Supreme Court has issued its decisions, we appeal to every leader in America to stand steadfastly together in promoting and defending the unique meaning of marriage – one man, one woman, for life. This creation arrangement has always been suitable – “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 1:27).