If God Defines Marriage, Exactly How Does He Define It?

There are conservative Christians in the United States who are really getting their knickers in a knot over the Supreme Court of the United States making same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.  I have seen some fairly extreme reactions on Facebook in the days since the ruling on Friday.  "God defines marriage, not the courts" is one example.  Really?  Do you know how God defines marriage in the Old Testament?  It is not all one man with one woman, you know.  There is:

• plural marriage (I could give many references here but to give just one, try Deuteronomy 21:15-17.  You don't legislate for something that never happens.)
• levirate marriage [nothing to do with baby hares; those are leverets] (Deuteronomy 25:5-9)
• the taking of a female prisoner of war as a wife [the wife has no choice in the matter, by the way] (Deuteronomy 21:10-14)
• concubines [women with a lower status than a wife] (Various people had concubines in the Bible, including an unnamed Levite in Judges 19.)
• marrying a virgin that you have raped if caught in the act [and never being able to divorce her] (Deuteronomy 22:28, 29)  {Note: if there are any conservative Christians (or, in fact, any Christians at all) who would prefer this to be law instead of same-sex marriage, then they will never be any friends of mine.}

And a few mandates related to marriage:

• the Biblical penalty for adultery (a man sleeping with another man's wife) is death (Deuteronomy 22:22)
• if an engaged woman is raped in a town and does not cry for help, she is stoned to death as well as the man (Deuteronomy 22:23, 24)
• if an engaged woman is raped in the country, only the man is put to death (Deuteronomy 22:25-27)

So when conservative Christians tell the rest of us "God defines marriage" or that it is "God's design, not man's redesign", they might just want to check their Bible on exactly what constitutes marriage according to the Bible.

There are other comments that conservative Christians have made since the SCOTUS ruling that when I read them, I don't know whether to facepalm, laugh or cry.  All three, maybe.  For example, you get people steadfastly proclaiming that no law or court will make them change who they are or what they believe.  Is anyone really asking them to change who they are or what they believe?  Or is that just their reaction to what has happened?  After all, same-sex marriage being legal in all 50 states is not about changing anyone's beliefs or even changing the minds of those who are against it.  It is about the right to marry someone of the same sex.  It is not about the feelings and beliefs of conservative Christians or any other religious group.  It is about the right to marry.  It is about putting right something that has been wrong for a long time.


Hopefully the conservative Christians will have vented their spleen enough soon and stop.