Comment by sarahj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sarahj | Hacker News Reader

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> Really? In the Judeo-christian framework? Which, like-it-or-not, has to be considered the base reference for the definition of marriage.

Why? Marriage was around a long long time before Christianity or even Judaism. There were hue portions of the world which that framework didn't touch for centuries after it's conception. Even if we were to restrict our view to those polygamy still dominates large parts of their history - which is far from the view of "traditional" marriage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage#History_of_marriage is well cited, and links to other, more in depth articles concerning Greek History, Chinese History and others where "traditional" marriage was far from the norm (and around for much, much longer).

Why? Because the reality is that this country, the US, was totally and completely founded on the Judeo-Christian principles and is baked into the DNA of the founding documents.

One of the more interesting facts about the colonization of North America is that, without exception, the only colonies that survived were the ones founded with deep religious convictions. Quite a powerful coincidence, no doubt.

There were 100's of attempts, but yet this fact holds up, so claiming now that we should pretend, in the US, that none of that effected anything is very odd to me.

And let's not conflate the issue here...I am not saying I am such a troglodyte that I oppose gay unions, what I was trying to say is that, if you step back dispassionately and reason a bit, you can actually see some logic in what the church was attempting to promote, albeit in a very self-serving way.

Even if we were to restrict our view to those polygamy still dominates large parts of their history - which is far from the view of "traditional" marriage.

Yes, but once again, not from the than-and-now-culturally-dominant religion, but from offshoots whom may of simply used the issue as a marketing tactic to get noticed.

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