Opinions/Editorials
See other Opinions/Editorials Articles
Title: The Myth About Marriage
Source:
New York Review of Books
URL Source: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblo ... s%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Published: May 13, 2012
Author: Garry Wills
Post Date: 2012-05-13 10:23:43 by lucysmom
Keywords: None
Views: 65908
Comments: 126
Why do some people who would recognize gay civil unions oppose gay marriage? Certain religious groups want to deny gays the sacredeness of what they take to be a sacrament. But marriage is no sacrament.
Some of my fellow Catholics even think that “true marriage” was instituted by Christ. It wasn’t. Marriage is prescribed in Eden by YHWH (Yahweh) at Genesis 2.24: man and wife shall “become one flesh.” When Jesus is asked about marriage, he simply quotes that passage from Genesis (Mark 10.8). He nowhere claims to be laying a new foundation for a “Christian marriage” to replace the Yahwist institution.
Some try to make the wedding at Cana (John 1.1-11) somehow sacramental because Jesus worked his first miracle there. But that was clearly a Jewish wedding, like any other Jesus might have attended, and the miracle, by its superabundance of wine, is meant to show the disciples that the Messianic time has come. The great Johannine scholar Father Raymond Brown emphasizes this, and concludes of the passage: “Neither the external nor the internal evidence for a symbolic reference to matrimony is strong. The wedding is only the backdrop and occasion for the story, and the joining of the man and woman does not have any direct role in the narrative.”
The early church had no specific rite for marriage. This was left up to the secular authorities of the Roman Empire, since marriage is a legal concern for the legitimacy of heirs.
snip
Those who do not want to let gay partners have the sacredness of sacramental marriage are relying on a Scholastic fiction of the thirteenth century to play with people’s lives, as the church has done ever since the time of Aquinas. The myth of the sacrament should not let people deprive gays of the right to natural marriage, whether blessed by Yahweh or not. They surely do not need—since no one does—the blessing of Saint Thomas.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 108.
How about if the faggots keep seaming two plus two equals seven thousand. We exercise our religous freedom under the first amendment and exterminate them.
If the democrats can exterminate innocent babies. Maybe the good people should start exterminating worthless piece of shit faggots.
#103. To: A K A Stone (#1)
#105. To: whyofcourse (#103)
I'm so impressed by the razzle dazzle. Think I'll go support the rainbow projecting, abracadabra man.
; ))))
#106. To: SJN (#105)
#108. To: whyofcourse (#106)
Seriously that hits my funny bone. I'm stealing it. Thanks.......:)))
Replies to Comment # 108.
There are no replies to Comment # 108.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 108.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]