Christianity is to blame.

Sir Ian McClellan said something rather curious on Bill Mahr’s show last week. He claimed that gay marriages have been around as long as the concept itself. I was taken aback by this comment and began my own research into the matter. After all, if such a claim is true then it certainly needs to be presented in the current Senatorial debates.

It seems that the claim is true. Gay marriages have been officially performed, overseen by emperors, in the East and the West for well over two thousand years. Furthermore, it was Christianity and its emphasis that marriage be used as a tool for procreation that led to the redefining of marriage as strictly a heterosexual activity.

I say it is time we reverted back to the original definition.

There also seems to be no evidence to suggest that gay marriage in the past coincided with bestiality or animals marrying humans. Only those enticed in the practice of bestiality itself could utter such imaginative nonsense (i.e. Bill O’Rielly.)


Here are some excerpts for Wikipedia.org


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The East

Same-gender romantic love or sexual desire has been recorded from ancient times in the east. Such desire often took the form of same-sex unions, usually between men, and often included some difference in age (there is far less information available on relationships among women in ancient times. This may in part reflect a philosophy that saw writing about women as unnecessary or inappropriate, or may be because same-sex attraction between women was not valued as it was between men, or may even be because women were not afforded equal status with men, so that, while men were free to pursue sexual and romantic pleasure both within and without marriage, women often were not).

In China, especially in the southern province of Fujian where male love was especially cultivated, men would marry youths in elaborate ceremonies. The marriages would last a number of years, at the end of which the elder partner would help the younger find a (female) wife and settle down to raise a family.

The West

There is a long history of same-sex unions in the western world. That many early western societies tolerated, and even celebrated, same sex relationships is well-known. Evidence of same-sex marriage, however, is less clear, but there exists some evidence, often controversial, of same-sex marriages in ancient Rome and Greece, and even in medieval Europe. Same-sex unions have also been recorded among Native Americans and Africans. In ancient Rome, for example, the Emperor Nero is reported to have married, at different times, two other men in wedding ceremonies. Other Roman Emperors are reported to have done the same thing. The increasing influence of Christianity, which promoted marriage for procreative purposes, is linked with the increasing intolerance of homosexuality in Rome.

Some historians have claimed that same-sex marriage has been documented in many societies that were not subject to Christian influence. In North American, among the Native American societies, it has taken the form of two-spirit-type relationships, in which some members of the tribe elect to take on female gender with all its responsibilities. They are prized as wives by the other men in the tribe, who enter into formal marriages with these two-spirit men.
In Africa, among the Azande of the Congo, men would marry youths for whom they had to pay a bride-price to the father. These marriages likewise were understood to be of a temporary nature.

Finally, in Europe during Hellenic times, the relationships between Greek men (erastes) and youths (eromenos) who had come of age were analogous to marriage in several aspects. The age of the youth was similar to the age at which women married (the mid-teens), and the relationship could only be undertaken with the consent of the father. This consent, just as in the case of a daughter's marriage, was contingent on the suitor's social standing. The relationship, just like a marriage, consisted of very specific social and religious responsibilities, and also had an erotic component.
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