Interesting article relevant to same-sex marriage

[herveus]

Thank you, cvirtue for mentioning this in FaceBook.

http://colfaxrecord.com/detail/91429.html presents a very interesting look at Christian history as it relates to same-sex unions. Formal named ceremonies for the unions are cited with dates ranging from 11th to 14th century, at the least. Other evidence is cited dating back farther. The article does not provide footnotes nor a bibliography, but many of the specific claims seem to provide enough information to identify the source material. To my eyes, it has the ring of being an honest report.

Taking the article at face value, the bottom line is that those who claim that the Christian concept of marriage has invariantly been one man and one woman always and ever are flat wrong. There's no way to sugar coat the conclusion. Now, that errancy is probably not willful ignorance so much as simple ignorance. I'd love to see this get wider coverage.

If you object to same-sex marriage, claiming a historical Christian basis for that objection holds no water. You need to come up with different arguments. It's not enough to simply say (as one articulate(?) witness at a hearing in DC said) "I object. I object. I object." (that following citing "If anyone has any reason why these people should not be joined in wedlock, let them speak now"). The prefatory remark implies that an actual reason will be elucidated.
(In the example above, the person actually uttered "I aject I aject I aject" -- rather inarticulate, but in character with the ranting tone of her "discourse")

Comments

[jurgenzuvols.livejournal.com]

I think this same sex marraige stuff will end up being a "black swan" debate. Such a thing didn't exist in the middle ages, because there was not a documented example (Black swan, not same sex Christian marriage). However, there is an Australian Black swan. So though empirically you can't prove or disprove the existence of black swans with a euro centric world view, when we have the opportunity to get more facts by globe trotting, the truth becomes self evident...

Unfortunately, this is one of those definitional debates... In previous generations, the reduced privileges of minorities were viewed as the socially correct norm. We don't see it that way as much, but the definition of what is a minority, as well as the definition of privileges or rights... It's easy to get confused.

The same sex marriage issue is only the surface of the iceberg. Marriage is pushed as an institutional political agenda. Without marriage or a marriage like constrcut, there are no easy default rights of survivorship. There is also no sharing benefits. One thing that could help get coverage to more people is allow extension of coporate coverage to domestic partners, regardless of marital status. I'm not sure what that means for the Poly community... but it's a helpful tool to extend existing coverage to more people.

[sengokudaimyo.livejournal.com]

I've seen these reports before. They always take the ceremonies out of context and try to re-interpret them.

Considering that the Church's stance has *always* been "homosexuality is wrong" I think anyone who claims to have found a "same-sex union" thing in Church history is either wrong, lying, or so wilfully biased he doesn't care one way or the other.

For the record, I am also a former Orthodox seminarian, so I *do* know my ecclesiastical history fairly well.

[hazebrouck.livejournal.com]

My first thought in reading about it is that the time period that was mentioned did not have a concept of a marriage sacrament of any sort. Marriage was a secular arrangement that was adorned with a church blessing. Banns and contracts were announced on the church steps because that was a common meeting place for lots of exchanges of information. The idea of marriage as a sacrament evolved over time for a number of reasons, and IMHO can be considered part of the changes the Catholic Church made in response to the pressures that lead to the Reformation.

All that history aside, I don't really give a rip whether or not it is grounded in Christianity and am totally befuddled that that should be an argument for law making. We are not all Christian, nor are all Christians of one mind on almost any subject you can think of except the necessity to follow Christ to salvation. I don't understand how the actions of strangers in another house degrades your own home or your own religious observance. Is someone less of a Christian if Jews move in next door? It's just hate mongering disguised as self righteousness and neither of those qualities do I find endearing.

[asaia.livejournal.com]

thanks for the Article!

[meradudd.livejournal.com]

Boswell's research shows rather conclusively that SS unions existed, mostly in the Eastern Church (Constantinople, not Rome), through the majority of period. There is other research which shows that prior to 1200 or so, it was tolerated in most of the Western Church as well.

This is not a terrible surprise as long-term homosexual/bisexual relationships were more culturally acceptable in the pre-Christian Byzantine areas than in pre-Christian Western Europe.

Marriage ceremonies in all of the affected cultures predate Christianity and Christianity had such ceremonies prior to Constantine.

In short, it is a rare but plausible and documentable occurrence which permeates pre-Crusade Europe. On a mostly unrelated note, the toleration of ordained women and SS unions track very strongly, with the decline of women in the presbytery coming about the same time as intolerance of SS unions in the Western church.