Biblical Marriage

Douglas V. Gibbs has left a new comment on your post "Asshat quote of the Day":

As always, your use of the Bible is misquoted and out of context. Research the scripture before you use it. Remember, the law was fulfilled and superceded by the New Covenant. I apologize for commenting, I usually only laugh at your misunderstandings and blantant misrepresentations of what I write. What amazes me is how much time you spend writing about me and the other rightwingers, rather than coming up with a legitimate thought about the world around you. I don't know, maybe I expect you to tackle today's issues as I do, rather than spend all your time making me famous.

Hmmm.. interesting in many ways.

I write about Doug because he's such a far fringe freak that it makes excellent fodder for ridicule. If I were to "tackle today's issues" as Doug does, I'd merely mischaracterize the opposing viewpoint over and over, create strawmen and argue against them, and never source any of my factual assertions. I just don't roll that way Doug.

Doug is a "bible literalist", hence his view that mankind dates back 6000 years and such. He uses a 2 layer approach. The Old Testament is the valid "word of God", except in those cases where it gets over-ruled by the New Testament. Marriage is a fun part of that.

Lets look at the OT styles of marriage. There are 8.

The standard nuclear family:
Polygyny Marriage:
Levirate Marriage:
A man, a woman and her property -- a female slave:
A man, one or more wives, and some concubines:
A male soldier and a female prisoner of war:
A male rapist and his victim:
A male and female slave:

Yes, in the OT, they had lots of whacky styles of marriage that we probably wouldn't find all that acceptable today. You know.. the norms of society change over time, right? What seems very repugnant to us (rape a woman, get to marry her) today, was just the way things were back then. What might have seemed repugnant to them (same-sex marriage) is fast becoming a social norm today. Obviously we have a bit more common sense today then mankind did in biblical times. That's called "social progress".

So, the NT comes along and changes all those rules, right? Well, wrong. What Jesus had to say about marriage was simply, "Sorry suckers, you can't get divorced". So, in today's society, naturally, the Christians lead the nation in divorce. Yep - makes all the sense in the world, doesn't it?

Instead of bat-shit crazy theocratic freaks like Doug writing about Christians leading the way in divorce, he rants about shit Jesus had nothing to say. Isn't that amusing? If Jesus gave a flying fuck about same-sex marriage, he might have said something about it.. but no... Jesus instead railed about divorce.

But lets go back to Doug's layered approach to religion. Since Jesus did not have anything to say about the OT's 8 methods of getting married, then the OT rules still apply. That's exactly why the Mormons (Christians themselves they would say) insisted that polygyny was perfectly acceptable. If you view marriage in the United States purely in terms of Christianity, I'd agree with them.

But the larger point is exactly that. Civil marriage in the United States is not religious. It's civil law, based on the laws established by the secular Constitution. Therefore, whatever rediculous bible thumping bullshit Doug wants to screech has nothing to do with CIVIL marriage laws.

I'd have posted this over on Doug's blog - but he'd just delete it, so it's nice that he came over here to provide more fodder to highlight. Thanks Doug.