Same-gender marriage opponents need history lesson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Candace Chellew-Hodge: Same-gender marriage opponents need history lesson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Don't be fooled by those who claim God invented marriage – it took centuries for the church to put its claim on it




The question: Is gay marriage a religious issue?

When my partner and I had our wedding ceremony seven years ago we did it in a church. We stood in front of a preacher and said our vows before our friends, some family, and our God. Despite the religious trappings of our ceremony, I don't believe that same-gender marriage is ultimately a religious issue. Ironically, since my partner and I cannot be married in the eyes of the secular state, a church wedding is the only option currently available to us.

Those who shout, "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" and claim the creation story as their basis for a religious, heterosexuals-only, marriage rite, need to brush up on their history. My brother made this argument to me once until I asked, "Who was the scribe in the garden?" He stared at me and changed the subject.

Adam and Eve is but one story of creation – all religions have one and not one of them comes from an eyewitness who was there taking notes. Marriage is read back into the story of Adam and Eve, but marriage was occurring long before the story was finally written down. That means society created marriage – not God. The original purpose of marriage has changed over the millennia. The one thing it didn't have originally? Religion.

Marriage was invented for the proper distribution of property – meaning land and other chattel which included the women involved in the marriage. Marriages were for the convenience of the men, not the women. Marriages were arranged to enlarge property holdings – to join two or more families who wanted to enlarge their wealth. Love had little, if anything, to do with these unions. Marriages prevented just any old bastard from coming along and asserting rights to the property of a man he may claim to call "daddy."

The early church knew that marriage was a man-made, civil institution and wanted little to do with it, according to EJ Graff in What is Marriage For? (p 195):

When asked, some priests might come by and say a blessing as a favour, just as they'd say a blessing over a child's first haircut. No one considered marriage sacred, as celibacy was: marriage was one of those secular and earthbound forms rendered unto Caesar.

It wasn't until 1215 that the church declared marriage a sacrament and set up a system of canon law around it. So don't be fooled by those who claim God invented marriage – it took centuries for the church to put its claim on it.

It's certainly true that historically marriage has always been between men and women. But, before 1967 in the United States, marriage was only between men and women of the same race. In the world of the ancient Hebrews, marriage was often between one man and many women.

Marriage has changed over the centuries, as it should, since marriage was created to fill a societal need – not a religious one – and marriage must adapt to society's ongoing needs. Marriage serves society, not the other way around. A new need has arisen in our time – the need for legal, governmental recognition and protection of two people of the same gender. Religion has absolutely nothing to do with that.