[ComposedPattern]

It would be hard to argue that the bible actively promotes same-sex marriage, but I think you could reasonably argue that it says nothing on the subject and so leaves it for the church/community to decide.

There are places where the bible gives guidance for heterosexual marriages, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all other marriages are prohibited. Most people are heterosexual, so it makes sense that the bible would talk about marriage in a heterosexual context.

There are also several verses that condemn gay sex, but I think you could make the case that it's not talking about the types of loving, committed gay relationships that we have in mind today. And also, even if gay sex is forbidden, you could still hold that gay couples are allowed to get married and adopt children, but that they should remain celibate. That's rough, but Christians commonly hold that heterosexuals aren't supposed to have non-procreative sex either. For comparison, the American Jewish Conservative movement holds that male-on-male anal sex is biblically prohibited, but all other aspects of gay relationships are permitted. And even though the sexual act is forbidden, it's also forbidden to invade someone's privacy by questioning whether they're doing it.

[sepositus]

> It would be hard to argue that the bible actively promotes same-sex marriage, but I think you could reasonably argue that it says nothing on the subject and so leaves it for the church/community to decide.

This is where I've yet to see convincing evidence. The whole meta-story of the first few chapters of Genesis was about creation. Not just creation of the universe as we know it, but the pro-creation between a man and a woman in the sanctimony of marriage.

Whether you have an overly-religious view of Genesis or not doesn't really change the fact that the original authors were clearly "sanctifying" this act of pro-creation (the "meme" if you want to use Dawkins' terms). Other cultures and tribes obviously had their own ways of sanctifying it, but in a large, almost universal majority of cases, it was always between a man and a woman.

Changing the gender to same-sex more or less destroy's the original intention of the meme. I mean, you can do it, but I don't think you're walking away with the authentic thought that was being communicated by the authors.

I'm purely speaking from an academic sense here (the art of understanding what someone wrote a long time ago). Sure, we can choose to ignore and/or change it because it's "out of date" but that leads back to a point I made elsewhere about how it's not usually within the Catholic tradition to so blatantly alter scripture.

[ComposedPattern]

> The whole meta-story of the first few chapters of Genesis was about creation. Not just creation of the universe as we know it, but the pro-creation between a man and a woman in the sanctimony of marriage

I find this to be a very strange reading. I never got that from the creation narrative at all. Looking through it, I only see two places that seem to be about marriage. First there's Genesis 2:22-24:

> 22. And God YHVH fashioned the side that had been taken from the man (adam) into a woman (ishah), bringing her to the man (adam). 23. Then the man (adam) said, “this one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman (ishah), for from a man (ish) was she taken.” 24. Hence a man (ish) leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife (ishah), so that they become one flesh.

This doesn't mention procreation at all! It seems to say that men and women come together because they have a common origin, not necessarily because it produces offspring. You could still say that this supports heterosexual marriage, but I don't see any particular reason to read it as prohibiting other types of marriage. And in fact, it seems to work fine with gay marriage – two men or two women are also presumably from the same flesh and bones as Adam and Eve.

Then there's Genesis 3:16:

> And to the woman [God] said, “I will greatly expand your hard labor—and your pregnancies; in hardship shall you bear children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

This says something about bearing children and about male-female relationships, but it doesn't really draw the line saying that the purpose of marriage is to produce children. It also presents all of this as an unfortunate state of affairs.

I guess there's also 1:28-29:

> 28. And God created man (adam) in the divine image, creating them in the image of God—creating them male and female. 29. God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.”

That talks about reproduction, but it doesn't say anything about marriage.

> I'm purely speaking from an academic sense here (the art of understanding what someone wrote a long time ago).

Right. I think whoever wrote the creation story was trying to provide an explanation for why the world was the way it was: why the world exists, why there are seven days in a week, why there are men and women, why they have dominance over the animals, why there's suffering, why snakes have no legs, and so and so forth. I don't think they meant for the creation story to give instructions at all, except a moral that one should obey God. I don't get the impression that the author was trying to sanctify marriage or procreation at all. If they were, it seems like they would have described Adam and Eve's wedding, they would have spent more than one sentence on the birth of their first child, and they wouldn't have presented pregnancy as a curse.

[sepositus]

> That talks about reproduction, but it doesn't say anything about marriage.

Later in chapter 2, God is quoted as saying:

> Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh

Jesus himself then comes back and quote this exact verse in Genesis in the context of divorce being bad (Matthew 19). It's clearly referencing marriage within the context of creation.

You may not agree it's the central thrust of the text, and perhaps I overstated the position, but marriage between a man and a woman is certainly a major theme in these first two chapters. I'd be impressed if you can find Rabbinical texts that support a different theory.