Same Sex Marriage

Well. thank you for that awesome argument of yours, but let me show you all the religious prerequisite regarding same sex marriage. The New Testament recognizes the importance of the Genesis creation stories for establishing a "two-sexes" or "other-sex" prerequisite for marriage. St. Paul clearly understood same-sex intercourse as an affront to the Creator's stamp on gender in Genesis 1-2. In his letter to the Romans, Paul cites two prime examples of humans suppressing the truth about God evident in creation/nature: idolatry and same-sex intercourse (1:18-27). Paul talks first about humans exchanging the Creator for worship of idols made "in the likeness of the image of a perishable human and of birds and animals and reptiles" (1:23); then about "females [who] exchanged the natural use" and "males leaving behind the natural use of the female" to have intercourse with other "males" (1:26-27). This obviously echoes Genesis 1:26-27: "Let us make a human according to our image and . . . likeness; and let them rule over the . . . birds . . . cattle . . . and . . . reptiles. And God created the human in his image, . . . male and female he created them." Taken together, we have not only eight points of correspondence between Gen 1:26-27 and Rom 1:23, 26-27 but also a threefold sequential agreement: A. God's likeness and image in humans B. Dominion over the animal kingdom C. Male-female differentiation It would be fair to say that if there is no intertextual echo here, then there is no such thing as an intertextual echo, as opposed to direct citation, in all of the New Testament. What is the point of this echo? Idolatry and same-sex intercourse constitute a frontal assault on the work of the Creator in nature. Those who suppressed the truth about God transparent in creation were more likely to suppress the truth about the complementarity of the sexes transparent in nature, choosing instead to gratify contrary innate impulses. In 1 Corinthian 6:9 Paul mentions "men who lie with males" (arsenokoitai)—a term formed from the absolute prohibitions of man-male intercourse in Lev 18:22 and 20:13—in a list of offenders that risk not inheriting the kingdom of God. Just as Romans 1:26-27 has Genesis 1:27 in view, so too 1 Corinthians 6:9 has Genesis 2:24 in view (partially cited in 1 Cor 6:16): "For this reason a man . . . shall be joined to his woman (wife) and the two will become one flesh." Taken in the context of Paul's remarks in chs. 5 (a case of adult incest) and 7 (male-female marriage), there is little doubt that Paul understood the offense of "men who lie with males" as the substitution of another male for a female in sexual activity; or, put differently, the abandonment of an other-sex structural prerequisite for a holistic sexual union. As with the case of the incestuous man, Paul would have found absurd any argument that suggested marriage as a means to avoiding sexual immorality. Same-sex intercourse, like incest, is a far greater instance of sexual immorality than infidelity. If it were otherwise, the church would be compelled to validate all committed incestuous unions. Same-sex intercourse, like man-mother incest, is not substantially improved by the manifestation of fidelity and longevity. Indeed, making the relationship long-term only regularizes the sin. That Paul did not limit his opposition to homosexual practice only to certain exploitative forms is evident both from his indictment of lesbian intercourse in Romans 1:26 and from the advocacy for non-exploitative homoerotic behavior that persisted in many quarters of the Greco-Roman world. Moreover, modern views about "homosexual orientation" would have made little difference to Paul's critique. There were "pagan" moralists and physicians who both posited something akin to homosexual orientation and held such desires to be "contrary to nature" even when given "by nature." We know that Paul viewed sin as an innate impulse, operating in the members of the human body, passed on by an ancestor, and never entirely within human control. It is not mere coincidence that when Jesus dealt with an issue of sexual behavior in Mark 10:2-12 he cited the same two texts from Genesis, 1:27 and 2:24, that lie behind Paul's critique of homosexual practice. Jesus adopted a "back-to-creation" model of sexuality. He treated Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 as normative and prescriptive for the church (Mark 10:6-9). In contending for the indissolubility of marriage, Jesus clearly presupposed the one explicit prerequisite in Gen 1:27 and 2:24; namely, that there be a male and female, man and woman, to effect the "one flesh" reunion. Jesus was not suggesting that lifelong monogamy was a more important consideration for sexual relations than the heterosexual (i.e. other-sexual) dimension. Rather, he narrowed further an already carefully circumscribed sexual ethic given to him in the Hebrew Bible. Sexual behavior mattered for Jesus. In the midst of Jesus' sayings on sex in Matthew 5:27-32 appears the following remark: If your eye or hand should threaten your downfall, cut it off. It is better to go into heaven maimed then to have one's whole body be sent to hell. The unanimous and unequivocal opposition to same-sex intercourse that persisted in early Judaism and in early Christianity leaves little doubt about what Jesus' view was. The portrait of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is of someone who, instead of loosening the law, closed its loopholes and intensified its demands (Matthew 5:17-48). Jesus did devote his ministry to seeking out the "lost" and "sick," such as sexual sinners and the biggest economic exploiters of Jesus' day (tax collectors). Yet he did so in the hope of bringing about their restoration through grateful repentance. He understood the command to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18; cited in Mark 12:30) in its context, which included the command to "reprove your neighbor and so not incur guilt because of him" (Leviticus 19:18). Continual forgiveness was available to those who sinned and repented (Luke 17:3-4). Jesus' requirement for discipleship was self-denial, self-crucifixion, and the losing of one's life (Mark 8:34-37; Matthew 10:38-39). It is time to deconstruct the false portrait of a sexually tolerant Jesus. Space does not permit a fuller exploration of the evidence from Scripture. For that I refer readers to my books and articles. There I also show, through examination of literary and historical contexts and the history of interpretation, that the story of Sodom in Genesis 19:4-11, like the stories of the Levite at Gibeah in Judges 19:22-25 and Ham's act against Noah in Genesis 9:20-27, is intended as an indictment of male-male intercourse per se, not merely of coercive acts; that the prohibitions in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are not antiquated purity laws; and indeed that every text in Scripture that has anything to do with sexual relations presupposes an unalterable heterosexual requirement. It is a relatively easy matter to demonstrate that in ancient Israel, early Judaism, and early Christianity, the only form of "consensual" sexual behavior regarded as a more severe infraction than homosexual practice was bestiality. The historical evidence indicates that every author of Scripture, as well as Jesus, would have been appalled by homosexual relationships, committed or otherwise.