Roy Moore, Alabama Chief Idiot back in the news yet again.

Destroying the meaning of marriage is a drastic solution to cram down the throats of people who object to it if all you want is practical covenantal benefits that can be arranged many other ways.

I'm afraid my frame of reference is too biblical for you and I don't really see why I should have to offer it. But any other attempt to define the benefits would be to my mind just the usual speculative mental conjuring that people do in such sociological efforts. The biblical purpose of marriage is to make "one flesh" of a man and a woman, their children, if any, being literally the expression of that one flesh.But I'm sure you mean social benefits and one would certainly be the protection of women, which would have been more necessary in earlier times, though up until fairly recently. And stability and security for the raising of children. That one's rather a joke in our age of easy divorce but in a society where marriage is valued and enforced as a standard that could be said of it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

They did not have an officially sanctioned Gay MARRIAGE, however much homosexuality and even permanent homosexual relationships they may have had.

Oh fer... That's a non sequitur. It doesn't matter what the source of the definition is. Since government is doing the defining it certainly CAN change its definition to destroy what's left of the definition of marriage that I hold the meaning of marriage to be. Actually I didn't say that. What I said was that objections to gay marriage are not about anybody's own personal experience of marriage. This idea that arguments against gay marriage derive from personal concern about its personal impact are bogus. I am not arguing from personal concern but for objective social standards, and against what I see as "mind rape" in the redefining of a social category to include what is really a sham, a charade, a fantasy that homosexuals want to live in order to feel normal. I see this as a recipe for a form of society-wide deceit, or in those who can see through the Emperor's New Clothes, a cynicism that accepts the devaluation of marriage as just another social deceit. Big fat pretense that sane people know is a pretense. Since it isn't my objection, it's your assessment that is hollow. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Your examples are about how some marriages came about, not how the marriage itself was legally defined.

Nothing I suggested about the social meaning of marriage implied that it was consciously designed that way, but women had to have the protection of a father or a husband in most societies throughout history because of the barbarian inclinations of men left over from the Fall, which cursed women with being ruled over by men. Which IS illustrated in your examples.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You are generalizing a few anecdotes into law.

You haven't been reading carefully. All I've said about the BIBLICAL view of marriage is that its purpose is to make one flesh of the two sexes. That's ALL I've said about the BIBLICAL point of view and I'm sure you know it's in the Bible or would you like me to quote it for you?The social ideas I DID make up, since, as I also said, that's all you can do to try to come up with a purpose for marriage, make up something that seems to explain it, which is what the sociologists do. I mentioned protection of women, which I did NOT say was biblical but a sociological explanation, and I mentioned creating a safe and stable environment for the raising of children, ALSO as a sociological and not a biblical explanation, which I also said would be true in a society that valued marriage but is rather a joke in our divorce-prone society. You will see this if you read back through my answers to vimesey.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No, marriage did not change over the last two millennia at all, up until a little over half a century ago, when it started falling apart in the west under the onslaught of Cultural Marxism / Political Correctness. And again you are refusing to recognize the simple logical point I made, preferring to misrepresent it and accuse me of something that's a total non sequitur and false to boot.

You continue to confuse incidentals with the essence. The point was that marriage itself has not changed over the last 2000 years, but only very recently, it's been one man with one woman for 2000 years, and it's been enforced by most societies as the rule. The objection to interracial marriage was very shortlived and very very local and its defense on the basis of the Bible bogus in the extreme, besides which that too has nothing to do with what I'm saying about the essence of marriage itself. Multiple spouses during that period is an aberration, the examples you have in mind precede Christ, meaning precede the last 2000 years.What's changed in the west in the last few decades is that divorce has become easy, many people live together without bothering to get married and now we have the absurd idea that homosexuals should be allowed to marry. Those are real changes and they are new.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I just answered jar. He is bringing up irrelevant incidentals and he's including things from BEFORE 2000 years ago, missing the whole point.Jesus' moral teachings bringing about the devaluation of marriage over the last few decades? What ARE you talking about?

When I suggested on this very thread that government shouldn't be involved in marriage I got trashed. Let's see if they do the same to you,.

Could we please keep the topic in sight here? You are also bringing up extraneous incidentals that are not about the nature of marriage itself, who may marry and so on.

OK so let me try to be clear. I have the structure of marriage in mind, who can marry whom, and whether marriage is even practiced, while apparently everybody else is thinking of incidentals like how women are treated, how the marriage came about etc. I don't think that has anything to do with marriage as such, but you are right, it needs to be clarified up front.The problem is I say something and someone else comes back without bothering to consider how I meant it and lambasts me in nasty accusatory terms, so I am always having to correct their misimpression, which they could have done themselves if they had an ounce of fairness in them.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Let's get the context straight if at all possible. Those changes that thrill you so have come about RECENTLY, VERY RECENTLY. That's the point of this discussion if you have any interest whatever in following the discussion, which I suppose you don't, but since I do there you have it. The point was that marriage stayed the same overall for those two thousand years, one man, one woman, and only recently changed under the influence of Cultural Marxism.There hasn't yet been enough time to find out if "the world is a much better place." But of course all you really mean is your politically correct opinion has the upper hand, therefore all's well with the world. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.