Marriage = 1 man + 1 woman: what the Bible says

July 19, 2011 / Posted in  Adolf Hitler, Ancient Egypt, Bible, Black Americans, Church history, Evangelical Christianity, Homosexuality, Iowa, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther, Michele Bachmann, Nazis, Robert Vander Plaats, Third Reich

Many contemporary evangelists, such as Keith Ratliff Sr of Des Moines, Iowa, a Black Southern Baptist preacher who extols hatred at the Maple Street Missionary Baptist Church, when denouncing the Iowa Supreme Court that stood up for human rights, claiming that the Iowa Supreme Court cannot “overturn the laws of [his] god” by allowing basic civil  rights to all people of Iowa while supporting slavery and forced labor in foreign nations, declaring that he speaks for god and uses a bible that is a poor translation of original documents.  Not only does Ratliff misuse the actual statements in the bible in its original sense (he has never had a professional course in translation and interpretation, nor wants one) but he claims that his particular version of scripture is sacred and not to be questioned, making him not only controversial but ludicrous as he has no concept of what he is talking about but does grandstand to an adorning and illiterate congregation. Ratliff is the president of the Iowa-Nebraska chapter of the NAACP, and goes against the official NAACP stand for the rights of all people, declaring that there is “no parallel” between the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the gay rights movement of the twenty-first century  (see: http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2009/04/iowas-leading-black-pastor-no-compromise-on-homosexuality.html), and rapid preachers such as

New York State Senator and Pentecostal preacher and former drug addict (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/nyregion/10marriage.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss) Ruben Diaz who has a 22-year-old lesbian granddaughter (http://www.examiner.com/bronx-county-political-buzz-in-new-york/lesbian-granddaughter-of-anti-gay-ny-state-sen-ruben-diaz-sr-speaks-out?fb_comment=33984746) and two openly gay brothers (http://gothamist.com/2009/11/10/senator_ruben_diaz_sr_wont_let_gay.php),

who have never studied the original scriptures in scroll or redactions claim that marriage is between one man and one woman.  In most cases, televangelists argue that marriage is where a woman submits to a man as if he were her “lord and master”—an absurdity found frequently among early Protestant leaders such as Martin Luther of eastern Germany and Jean Calvin of Geneva (Switzerland). What [(ὃ)] is not “those” (Οι meaning αυτές) and is a translation error. That is not what any ancient document defines marriage as being: a submission of one to another, but rather a united workforce of two (or more) people.  The full text comes from Matthew 19:4: but this is not about marriage, but about divorce, and the text is not a reference to individuals but to a unity of purpose and work, for the word that is used is “enjoined” or “cleaved” that means “knit together” (or “glued”) as if it were one (ο δε αποκριθεις ειπεν αυτοις ουκ ανεγνωτε οτι ο ποιησας απ αρχης αρσεν και θηλυ εποιησεν αυτους και ειπεν ενεκεν τουτου καταλειψει ανθρωπος τον πατερα [αυτου] και την μητερα και προσκολληθησεται τη γυναικι αυτου και εσονται οι δυο εις σαρκα μιαν).  There is no gender reference in this line.  It is copied from Mark 10:9 and was adapted to Romans 7:1-3. 

Exegetical writers argue that the aorist tense (denoting the occurrence of an event at some past time, considered as a momentary act) seems to refer to the original ordinance of God at the creation—but this does not exist. Matthew 19:4-5 is strengthened by the word Συνεζευξεν, which translates as “yoked together,” in the same was as oxen are yoke together at the plough, where each must pull equally, in order to bring the plough through the field and ultimately benefit from their labor. This is a very ancient symbolism and found in all Abrahamic communities, where their people who were newly married, put a yoke upon their necks, or chains upon their arms, to show that they were to be one, closely united, and pulling equally together in all the concerns of life.

The ancient custom of putting on a yoke in the Middle East was generated by practical needs: the understanding that unless the two worked together the two would not eat, as the symbolism is quite different from the ancient Greek theology as defined in the marriage of Cupid and Psyche.  In this far older religious perspective, Cupid (not a baby nor a boy but a robust man) wed Psyche and the two became “one flesh”—a term that later Hapiru moving from India into the Canaanite valley would adopt.  This changed only slightly with time, as can be seen in the interpretations of the translation from the Greek into the Syriac, Arabic, Persic, and Ethiopic versions that read, “one body”: with the subjection of the “weaker vessel” that is given the title “wife” (it had nothing to do with gender” is to be beloved by the husband (the stronger vessel) as his own body, as himself, as his own flesh, which appears in paraphrasing in the Pauline Letter to the Ephesians 5:28. The idea, in its earliest days did not include a contract for “eternity” but while the union was mutually beneficial.  The ancient Egyptians defined that as being a contract for “marriage” (mutual help) understood as a social institution that culminated in the legal or religious ceremony that formalizes the decision of two people (gender not specified) to live as a married couple and work for each other, protect each other, love each other, nurture each other and be supportive of each other.

What the various writers of the Gospels and Epistles ignored (or were expunged of in the various redactions of the scriptures, especially during the era 440 – 1120 CE) was that the objection, allegedly posed by the Jesus of the New Testament, is to the indifference of married couples where Moses allowed the husband to give his wife a letter of divorce is found in Deuteronomy 24:1.  By the time that the Book of Deuteronomy is written and with its various redactions put into place, the two partners become gender specific, so that if a man (the stronger of the two) marries a woman (the weaker of the two) who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, he is allowed to write her a certificate of divorce, give it to her and send her from his house (as property was the prerogative and right of the stronger of the two in a union, and women lost, over time, their rights in a “marriage” (cp. Matthew 5:31 but that is allowed only in case of infidelity because the wife will seek sex elsewhere and that was considered, wrongly, as adultery, and the individual having sex with the one divorced is considered guilty as well to the charge of adultery: the key is in verse 32: εγω δε λεγω υμιν οτι ος αν απολυση την  γυναικα αυτου παρεκτος λογου πορνειας ποιει αυτην μοιχασθαι και ος  εαν απολελυμενην γαμηση μοιχαται that is taken from Jeremiah 3:9 and reflects Babylonian law; it is definitely not new with the Jesus of the New Testament (cf. Matthew 19:8 where Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning”).  The Matthew account is directly copied from the Marcian account (Mark 10:11 which matches the Babylonian directive. It must be remembered that the Gospel of Mark is the source for the other synoptic gospels—not Matthew and this is best seen in the misuse of the word “wife.”

Wife, originally, meant “helpmeet” [a person suitable to help a lord or leader, and was used in the original King James Version of the Bible; in the original Genesis 2:18, it means “suitable” and usually came after investigation, interview, dialogue, and terms of the employment or living agreed upon] or “helpmate” [a companion, from the Hebrew ‘ezer keneghdo’ [וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים לֹא־טֹוב הֱיֹות הָאָדָם לְבַדֹּו אֶעֱשֶׂהּ־לֹּו עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדֹּו׃] it does not become one unified word until 1673].  Wife did not mean a woman married to a man until shortly before 900 CE, and then it is an evolutionary word that comes from the Old English wif  “woman,” from Proto-Germanic *wiban  (cf. Old Saxon and Old Frisian wif , Old Norse vif , Danish and Swedish viv , Middle Dutch and Dutch wijf , Old High German wib , and German Weib ), of uncertain origin. Some proposed Proto-Indo-European (hereafter cited as PIE) roots include *weip–  “to twist, turn, wrap,” perhaps with sense of “veiled person” [which various religions in the subcontinent and Middle East will adopt when they turn to “covering the wife” with a Burqa] (see vibrate: Latin vibratus,  past participle of vibrare meaning to “move quickly to and fro, shake,” which was expected from a helper to show that the individual was working’ from PIE *w(e)ib–  “move quickly to and fro” (cf. Lithuanian wyburiu  “to wag” (the tail) as a helper was expected to move quickly and the labor would require that the entire body was not resting, thus bending over, or swaying when harvesting, planting, and so forth was required and later used to “wag the tongue” (to speak quickly in defense of the house, to correct a disobedient child, or to speak out against a wrongful act), as it appear in the Danish vippe, Dutch wippen  “to swing,” that originate out of the Old English wipan meaning “to wipe” as the drying of a dish, cleaning of a table, and so forth; or *ghwibh– , a proposed root meaning “shame,” also “pudenda,” but the only examples of it are wife  and Tocharian (a lost Indo-European language of central Asia) kwipe, kip  “female pudenda.” The modern sense of “female spouse” that began as a specialized sense in Old English was transmogrified into the current the general sense of “woman” and can be seen in the preservation of such words as midwife, old wives’ tale, etc.  The Middle English sense of “mistress of a household” survives in housewife and it gave the house tender control over supplies, ordering victuals, disciplining servants and churls, and so forth.  It was later restricted in the sense or terminology of “tradeswoman of humble rank” as in fishwife. This is seen in the Dutch Wijf.  All became subject, in time, to the control of a male as patriarchy became increasingly more dominant and the fertility mother (alma mater) and her statues (such as the Venus of Willendorf; 24,000 – 22,000 BCE; cf. Berlant, Stephen (July, 2011). The Venus of Hohle Fels: Its Entheomycological Significance in Relation to The Venus of Willendorf and

Other, Anthropoid, Female Figurines. http://www.anistor.gr/english/index.htm Art Section) disappeared to be replaced by patriarch and masculine representations when displaced males (such as the ancient Hapiru invaded, conquered, and destroyed the more advanced civilizations such as Canaan and demoted their goddesses (Asherah, for example) to raise up their totems of male dominance, or transmogrified female deities into male deities, as seen in the Yah from ancient Egypt).

It is claimed, in error, that the ordinance of marriage was sanctioned in Paradise (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-6). It is also stated by evangelicals that monogamy was the original law under which man lived, but polygamy commenced at a very early date (Genesis 4:19), and continued to swell in number and frequency and prevail all down through Jewish history.

The laws of Moses regulated but did not prohibit polygamy. A man might have a plurality of wives, but a wife could have only one husband. A wife’s legal rights (Exodus 21:10) and her duties (Proverbs 31:10-31; 1 Timothy 5:14 being a plagiarism from past Hebraic writings taken from Akkadian scripts) are specified. The wife could be divorced in special cases (Deuteronomy 22:13-21), but the wife could not divorce her husband.

It is alleged that divorce was restricted by the Jesus of the New Testament to the single case of adultery (Matthew 19:3-9) as discussed earlier, but the authenticity of this inclusion is now under scrutiny. The duties of husbands and wives in their relations to each other are distinctly set forth in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 7:2-5; Ephesians 5:22-33; Colossians 3:18, 19; 1 Peter 3:1-7). What is unique is the role of the “husband”?

The word “husband” originally meant a manager and a frugal person (a change occurred with the advent of the Industrial Revolution).  The husband controlled all income (including the wife’s dowry that was brought to the marriage) and purchases in the house).  The word “husband” is from Old Norse hūsbōndi,  which is a combination of hūs  house + bōndi  one who has a household, from bōa  to dwell reflecting the Old English husbonda:  “male head of a household,” probably from the Old Norse husbondi  “master of the house,” from hus  “house” + bondi but with the unique meaning of  “householder, dweller, freeholder, peasant,” from buandi,  present participle of bua  “to dwell”.  It was originally used for a “peasant farmer” (early thirteenth century) and is preserved in husbandry (first attested in the late fourteenth century). Beginning late in the thirteenth century it replaced the Old English wer as “married man,” as the companion of a wif, which has been recognized by many scholars as a sad loss for English poetry. The verb “manage thriftily” appearing in the middle of the fifteenth century is from the noun, in the obsolete sense, “steward” (mid-fifteenth century); before 1000 CE.  The Middle English husband ( e ), Old English hūsbonda  meant anyone who was master [controller] of the house and comes from the Old Norse hūsbōndi,  equivalent to hūs (house) + bōndi  ( bō-,  variant of bū-)  dwell (see the word boor in any quality dictionary as it refers to a peasant or an unruly person: a country bumpkin; rustic; yokel or one who acts like a pig: is boorish) + -nd  present participle suffix + -i  inflectional ending).

To build a theology around the antiquity of “marriage” led to the invention of many words by giving a false definition to them as found in the Christian Bible. For example, the Biblical name of the first man, from the Hebrew adam (Hebrew: אָדָם‎, Arabic: آدم‎) does not mean “man,” but must be translated “from the ground”.  It is a horticultural term: a lump of red clay (Hebrew is adamah  “ground”) and comes from the Canaanite word for “workers of the earth” and is plural in number and gender neutral; cf. Latin: homo that is misused and mistranslated as “man,” but is actually a Greek word meaning “same”; this is, however, found in the words for humanus for “human,” and humus  “earth, ground, soil.” The misuse of translation and interpretation skills have brought such nonsense into the language as “Adam’s apple” (first appearing in 1755) being an inexact translation of the Hebrew tappuah haadam, literally: “man’s swelling,” from ha-adam  “the man” + tappuah  “anything swollen” that actually described the swelling of the earth when there was an earthquake or volcanic eruption. The allusion is to the fact that a piece of the forbidden fruit (commonly believed to be an apple) that Eve gave Adam is supposed to have stuck in his throat. To not know (someone) from Adam “not know him at all” is first recorded 1784.

The issue of “red” for the earth is from ancient Babylonia and has been used by the invading Hapiru and other barbarians from the north as a generic name for man, having the same meaning in the Hebrew and the Assyrian languages. The order of creation written in Genesis 1 and 2 very significantly (Ide, Arthur Frederick (1982). Woman in ancient Israel under the Torah and Talmud : with a translation and critical commentary on Genesis 1-3; Mesquite: IHP) , as does the “sin” that saw the mortals expelled from the Garden, once “Eve” is created and she eats the forbidden fruit. At that point she becomes a woman, and her punishment for sinning against the orders of the landlord was to give birth to children—although she only had three sons. We have the names of only three of Adam’s sons, viz., Cain (it means “farmer”), Abel (it means “shepherd”, and Seth (it has various meanings, including “trickster” and “substitute”) who has his origins in ancient Egyptian theology.  Genesis 5:4 reads that other children were born—and from them all came all the nations of the earth.  This line shows that incest was acceptable and a common form of “marriage”, and while the “children” of Genesis 5:4 says “sons and daughters” and Josephus claims (Antiquities 1:1) that Adam had thirty-three sons and twenty-three daughters, Cain would have had to marry (had sex) one of them to have children. Josephus is not a reliable writer, nor is he a historian or scientist, and his books are saturated with errors (http://www.isaiah18.com/josephusvsnature.html).

Eve is the only “living human” that can be based on the Bible. It is a feminine noun, and is in Hebrew Hawwah that liberally has been translated as “a living being” but actually is a word that means “life” or “the growing earth.”  What history there is of her comes from various texts, but few are in agreement.  The birth of her first son cannot linguistically be attributed to Adam, as Genesis 4:1 states “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord,” suggesting that the overseer was the father and follows the outline and words of most ancient civilizations from Ethiopian to Hindu on the generation of species. 

Eve named her son Cain as if he had been the Promised One the “Seed of the woman.” While this topic is too involved to enter into this essay, what must be answered is the evangelical biblical literalists argument that Adam and Eve were “married”.  Their claim is based on Genesis 2:24 (repeated in Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7) but the word references a sexual act and not a contract to continue laboring together.  Then, too, there is the argument that Adam only had one wife; but legend and other scriptures argue that he had two: the first wife was known as Lilith first appearing in what is considered a pseudepigraphic eighth to tenth century Alphabet of Ben Sira is considered to be the oldest form of the story of Lilith as Adam’s first wife, with Eve as his second wife, but Lilith and her legend is found earlier in the Babylonian Talmud (completed between 500 and 700 AD/CE, although legend has it that it was begun around 200 CE). Lilith is also found in Mesopotamian and Akkadian texts that predate both, with the Tree of Life being a part of the Babylonian Gilgamesh.

Seth was the third son of Adam and Eve (Genesis 4:25; the word means “appointed” or “substitute”, (Genesis 4:25; 5:3). His mother gave him his name, “for God,” said she, “hath appointed me [i.e., compensated me with] another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” However, the name can be directly traced to an ancient Egyptian god, patron of the 11th nome (or province) of Upper Egypt.

Seth has been recorded with the symbols of pigs, donkeys, and fishes. His cult centers were at Tanis, Ombos, and he was regarded as the Lord of Lower (Northern) Egypt.  Most commonly, Seth was represented by a big-eared imaginary animal with red (reflecting Adam: the red earth) hair resembling a donkey or maybe an aardvark. He was associated with the desert and storms. The Greeks associated Seth with their god, Typhon.  His story is more complete in ancient Egyptian theology than the mythology of Genesis.

Seth was the brother of Osiris, Isis and Nephthys who was also his wife. Nephthys’ son, Anubis was born from her tryst with Osiris, carrying out the Middle East acceptance of adultery and incest. Seth never had any children, as emphasis of his association with the barren desert and of his status as the antithesis of the fertile Osiris. During his battles with Horus, the goddess Neith suggested a compromise by giving Horus the throne, and Seth the Semitic goddesses Astarte (Venus who in Canaanite theology was known as Asherah) and Asat, which gave him two wives like other Middle Eastern Semitic men.

The story of Seth in Egypt is similar to that of Cain in the Old Testament for Seth became famous for the fratricide of his brother Osiris which most likely is the source for the Genesis account of Cain and Able, and for the attempted murder of his brother’s son, Horus. Horus survived though and avenged his father’s death by ruling all of Egypt and exiling Seth to the desert for all time—similar to Cain’s exile. Seth, however was not willing to accept the loss of his “birthright” and, like the legend of Jacob and Esau, was tricked out of it by his father’s wife.  While Jacob covered his hairless arms with the skins of goats, to fool his father Isaac, Isis transformed herself into a beautiful young woman and went to Seth with tears streaming down her face.  Seth asked the young woman what the matter was and Isis told a story like the situation that she found herself in with Horus: where an evil man had killed her husband and was trying to steal her family’s flocks. Seth became angry at her plight and insisted that the evil man be destroyed and that the young woman’s son should inherit the family’s estate. By his own words, Seth condemned himself, and lost the throne of Egypt.

In the Legend of Osiris, Seth/Set kills Osiris and scatters his body, then claims the throne of the gods for his own. He is later struck down by Horus, the son of Osiris, who restores order to the world and sets up the pharaohs as the guardians of Maat. Seth/Set and Horus continue to battle for control of the world, setting up an epic conflict of good versus evil as would Michael the archangel battle the Fallen Angel (some who claim is Lucifer, others Satan; they are not the same angels: Satan is a Babylonian Son of God who is known as the Adversary or Advocate/Lawyer in Job 2:1, and Lucifer was an angel/god of light {lucem ferre}, while the one Cast Down was “The Devil” (Isaiah 14:3-20), but he is not said to have been “cast down” from heaven—this comes from the Second Book of Enoch Verses 29:4, 31:4 of the longer recension manuscript R.) For an English translation of the story, read:  http://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/legendofosiris.htm.  There are, however, many early Church Fathers celebrated this fiction which in time was accepted as fact, as with Tertullian (Contra Marcionem, v. 11, 17), Origen (Homilies on Ezekiel 13), and others, who identify Lucifer with the Devil, erroneously interpreting the Devil as being “cast down from heaven” (by mistranslating  Revelation 12:7–10; cf. Luke 10:18).

As for marriage being between “one man and one woman” as the hate mongers hiding behind the poorly translated bibles argue throughout the Christian world, there is no biblical support for the idea or concept.  Genesis 4:19 says “Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah.” That means that marriage is between one man and two women (which can lead to jealousy and murder: Genesis 4:23).  Jacob, who was not of the House of Cain, also had a plurality of wives, with Leah and Rachel (who were polytheists) being the best known (Genesis 29:32 sqq), including the rare glimpse into their use of sexual devises (they sat on phallic statues of their gods to hide them from their father).

Abraham married his half-sister (Genesis 12:10-20), Sarah (Genesis 11:29-31), then “married” (had sex with) her servant Hagar (Genesis 16:1–21:21).  After the death of his wife Sarah takes another wife, Keturah, who has six sons (25:1-4).

Esau, the elder twin son of Isaac and Rebekan (Genesis 25:25) also liked the ladies and married frequently.  The names of Esau’s wives differ in two traditions (Genesis 26:34 and 28:9; cf. 36:2-3).

Moses had at least two wives.  One was Zipporah (who was Moses’ cousin: Exodus 2:15-16 and in Exodus 18:1-6 and continued the Egyptian practice of female circumcision: Exodus 4:24-26).  Moses’ second wife was the “woman of Ethiopia” (http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Ethiopian-Princess the author of this article develops the reality found in the ancient spelling of the Torah where evangelicals attempt to claim that Moses had but one wife—which would be unusual in that day; cf. Numbers 11:35-12:2).  Moses’ polygamy is matched by Elkanah who had two wives: Hannah and Penninah (1 Samuel 1:2).

David had numerous wives (Michal {daughter of King Saul; I Samuel 18:20,28 is unique as it is the first Biblical account of a woman saying that she loved a man, but here the Hebrew word is ahava and it does not mean a romantic love; Saul set a bride-price for the groom David to receive Michal; to risk his life harvesting the foreskin of 100 Philistines, but David returned with the foreskin of 200}, Ahinoam {mother of Amnon; Ahinoam was King Saul’s wife and daughter of Ahimaatz (I Samuel 14:50) and David married her while Saul was still alive and had not divorced her}, Abigail {mother of Kileab; Abigail is the wife of Nabal (whose name denotes a fool or glutton), a wealthy landowner in the Hebron. She is noted as wise and beautiful (I Samuel 25:3) especially in contrast to her husband}; Maacah {mother of Absalom and Tamar and daughter of King Talmai of Geshur}; Haggith {mother of Adonijah}, Eglah {mother of Ithream}, and Abital {mother of Shephatiah}. David’s last wife was Bathsheba, mother of Solomon {David married Bathsheba after having her husband killed; Bathsheba is named as the daughter of Eliam (II Samuel 11: 3) himself the son of Ahithophel one of David’s counselors (II Samuel 23:34) and David had sex with her despite the fact she was menstruating, which was illicit according to Jewish law)’ it is also possible that David married his own sister: According to the Book of Chronicles David had a sister named Abigail (I Chronicles 2:16) whose her husband is named Ithra (or Jether) (2 Samuel 17:26; and I Chronicles 2:17). It is possible that after Nabal’s death David’s sister rule over Hebron, which baits the question of whether or not there were two Abigail’s – one David’s third wife and one his sister, who most likely were sisters-in-law, and even possibly the same person? That implies that David married his sister after the death of his rival Nabal to inherit her estates. Could David marry his sister – it was not unheard of in the ancient mid-east (cf. Levenson, Jon D. (1978) in Catholic Biblical Quarterly, p. 27); David is accused of two sins:  murder and adultery (where death is commanded for both the man and the woman {Leviticus 20:10}), including having sex with his own granddaughter.  For murder, the prophet intoned, David’s punishment was to be ‘the sword shall never depart from your household. (II Samuel 12:10). For adultery his punishment is ‘[God] will raise up against you evil out of your own house . . .  Your wives . . . will lie with your friend . . . in sight of this sun . . . you shall not die . . . the child that is born to you shall surely die’ (II Samuel 12:11-14).  David readily admits his sin and the prophet responds that God will forgive, but David must nevertheless be punished. David’s immediate acceptance of his crime saves his own life but not that of the unborn child (‘And the Lord struck the child’ (II Samuel 12:15). King

David also loved at least one man (Jonathan). David’s love for Jonathan is Biblical evidence that marriage (sexual) union occurred between men, as with David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:1-3) for in the account we read the Hebrew word ahab, used to describe how Jonathan loved David and it does not mean “platonic”; it occurs 208 times in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. It is translated love in the KJV 169 times and occurs in the story of David and Solomon in 1 Samuel 16:21, 18:1, 3, 16, 20, 20:17 and II Samuel 1:26.

Solomon outdid all of the men in the Old Testament for polygamous marriages.  Solomon had 700 official wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:1-3).

No where in the Bible is there a rule, law, proclamation, statement from any god in the Old (אֱלהִים: elohim is a plural noun and refers to “god(s)” and/or “goddess(es)”) or New Testament nor is the Jesus of the New Testament that marriage between one man with one woman. 

The Holy Spirit [which was not a part of the Trinity until the fourth century, and was considered one of three divine “persons” {ὑποστάσεις} but of one being {οὐσία} the invention of the Τριάς was established at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE under the order of the Emperor Constantine] used ahab in Genesis 29:20 to describe Jacob’s love for his wife Rachel and in Song of Solomon 3:1-4, to describe the love of the Shunamite girl for Solomon. The love of the Shulamite girl for Solomon is described as coming from her nephesh-soul, just as Jonathan’s love for David sprang from his nephesh-soul. Scripture uses ahabahto describe sexual love in the context of opposite sex marriage in Proverbs 5:19. Compare Ruth and Naomi (Ruth 1), Centurian and his servant (Matthew 8), Daniel and Ashpenaz in Daniel 1.  None of these were Sodomites, which refers to a city and the “pagan” (non-Hebrew worshippers of a fertility goddess: Asherah).  A sodomite in the Bible was always a shrine prostitute who worshipped the Canaanite fertility goddess? In many ways, the ancient Sodomites were similar to today’s cult of the Westboro Baptist Church that claims that “god hates…” and the god of Westboro Baptist Church will destroy nations that do not follow the dictates of his priesthood. Cf. Deuteronomy 23:17-18, 1 Kings 14:24, 15:12, 22:46, 2 Kings 23:7 and the non-Hebrew Book of Job 36:14;  all that use the word qadesh: it means “shrine prostitute” or “sacred whore” worshipping and interceding for a non-Hebrew deity.  This is the same term in Isaiah 1:9-10, 3:9, 13:19; Jeremiah 23:14, 49:18, 50:40; Lamentations 4:6; Ezekiel 16:46, 48-49 (which clearly defines the sin of the City of Sodom), 53, 55-56; Hosea 4:14 – harlots, qadeshah, shrine prostitutes; Amos 4:11; Zephaniah 2:9; Matthew 10:15, 11:23-24; Mark 6:11; Luke 10:12, 17:29; Romans 9:29; 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 5-7 talks about people and makes no references to LGBT individuals, as it speaks of the past when the Jews were in Egypt (it is worthy of note that the author(s) of Jude uses the Greek word, heteras {ἕτερος: meaning different, as in Acts 2:4 referencing speaking in different tongues} from which we get our English word, heterosexual, instead of the Greek word, homoios, {ίδιο: meaningsame} from which we get our English word, homosexual); Revelation 11:8, 22:15 – dogs (compare Deuteronomy 23:17-18 – “dog” was a derogatory name for a shrine prostitute: a “dog priest”; read: http://levendwater.org/companion/append42.html. The base line is clear: The participles ἐκπορνεύσασαι (ekporneusasai, “having indulged in sexual immorality”: going against consent or using sex in worship) and ἀπελθοῦσαι (apelqousai, “having pursued”) have concord with “cities” (πόλεις, poleis), a feminine plural noun, rather than with Sodom and Gomorrah (both masculine nouns) indicates non-Hebrew values or actions and thus were condemned and had nothing to do with sex between consenting individuals. 

The Testament of Asher 7:1 boldly declares that the people of Sodom should haveknown that the angels were strangers and thus would have sought them out as occurs in lands where xenophobia is strongest since throughout the Middle East there was a belief that angels/giants {or “Fallen Ones”} sought out the daughters of mortals (Testament of Naphtali 3:3-5; cp. Genesis 6:1-4; Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie March 15, 1905).  These “fallen ones” have long been questioned as to whom they were, what they wanted, etc.  Among the most interesting interpretations is that of Matthew Henry who argued that god had to intervene (Henry, Matthew (1961) Commentary on the Whole Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House):

“The sons of Seth (that is the professors of religion) married the daughters of men, that is, those that were profane, and strangers to God and godliness. The posterity of Seth did not keep by themselves, as they ought to have done. They inter-mingled themselves with the excommunicated race of Cain.”

It was not the sex between the two, but rather that they was an “intermixing” (true believers and nonbelievers) that would ultimately come into being an excuse for condemning interracial marriages and other merging of people.  Henry’s arguments are as spurious and nefarious as most evangelical commentaries, especially those by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostal movements such as the Adventists, because at no time, before the Flood (a worldwide myth) or after, has God destroyed or threatened to destroy the human race for the alleged sin of “mixed marriages.” 

Like other evangelicals, Henry is over reading the text, as there is no mention of Seth anywhere in this account. The contrast made in Genesis 6:2 is not between the descendants of Seth and the descendants of Cain, but between the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men.”  Furthermore, only the daughters of Cain were involved—not the sons, and there is no indication of anything but traditional sexuality—definitely no reference to homosexuality with the Fallen Ones.  While Genesis 6:12 acknowledges that “all flesh” is corruptible (and subject to passion”, St. Augustine noted (Aurelius Augustine,The City of God (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1949), Transl. Marcus Dods) precisely:“Like the gods they have corporeal immortality, and passions like human beings.” The major problem is that the angels in the Old Testament were “Sons of God” (Job 2:1), but in the New Testament are “Servants of God”, and sex is not involved.  There is no reference to specific limitations on marriage—just that a person is to “sin no more” or encounter “strange flesh.”

The last point here is critical.  If Jesus was the Son of God, as many (but not all) fourth century Christians claimed, he would have been tempted by the flesh, had a girl friend, and following Jewish custom, would have married and had children.  Jesus did none of these things.  Instead, the Jesus of the New Testament had no girl friend nor girlfriends, never married (quite strange in during that time, and would led to a family and public rebuking), had 72 male disciples (it is recorded only in Luke 10:1–24; the number is in dispute, between 70 and 72, as The King James, New King James, and the New American Standard Bible read that Jesus “sent forth 70 disciples,” while the New International Version, The Jerusalem Bible, and the New Living Translation reflect that Jesus “sent forth 72 disciples”.  The difference is found in Nestle’s Novum Testamentum Graece, where the Greek word μετα δε ταυτα ανεδειξεν ο κυριος και ετερους εβδομηκοντα και απεστειλεν αυτους ανα δυο προ προσωπου αυτου εις πασαν πολιν και τοπον ου εμελλεν αυτος ερχεσθαι (“hebdomekonta“).  However, immediately following this word is the Greek word δύο or “duo” in brackets (duo) and must be translated “two.” Footnotes of several translations indicate that the Greek manuscripts are divided between 70 and 72 as the number sent out and there is no way to be sure of which one is the original. Both represent the number of nations in the world in Genesis 10, with the Hebrew text having 70 names while the Greek text has 72) and stayed with twelve men (only one who was married but never was with his wife: Peter according to the Bible (Matthew 8:14), but early Church Fathers claimed that all were married except “John the Beloved of Jesus” who “remained chaste for Jesus”; cf. http://www.ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=489266&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2006&Author=&Keyword=apostles+were+married&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=1&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=; Saul of Tarsus/St. Paul was never married: 1 Corinthians 9:5), and let another man (John the Beloved) lay his head on his chest {John 13:25 and 21:20}, who

Jesus allowed to rest his head there “because he loved him”—as he had loved the brother of Mary and Martha who died but after he was restored to life disappeared—when John enters into Jesus community as being “born again” {John 11:1-44}), and have a nude youth follow him out of the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives (Mark 14:51-52 that is a revision of the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were expelled).  These are marks of a

servant—which is emphasized in Jesus’ ultimate speech where he prays (cf. Luke 11:2) that “this cup” (of impending death) be removed—a power that, as the Son of God, he would have been able to do, as the Advocate (Satan) noted in the Temptation in the Desert—but which Jesus rejected as would a faithful servant.  

 Jesus made no statement on marriage throughout his three-year career as a teacher (http://preachersfiles.com/jesus-teaching-on-marriage-and-divorce/).  Neither did his disciples nor apostles. He had no quarrel with women; he had no interest in what people did privately provided they did not go against trust, charity, or the spirit of the law (Matthew 19:9).

These acts brought into question the very divinity—an argument that tore apart the Christian community until the Emperor Constantine stepped in to the argument in the fourth century CE and formed his Christian Church when he called the Council of Nicaea to iron out their differences.  Chief among these “heresies” was Arianism. Arianism was a major heresy that arose in the fourth century and denied the divinity of Jesus Christ.  First effectively advanced by Arius (256-336), a priest of Alexandria, who denied that there were three distinct divine Persons in God, Arius saw most of the early Fathers turn to favor his position; in fact, Eusebius of Caesarea (who wrote the first fifty copies of the bible under the direct order of the Emperor Constantine, was an Arian, and the bishop who baptized the emperor on his deathbed (against the will of the emperor) was also an Arian). For Arius, there was only one Person, the Father. According to Arian theory, the Son was created (“There was a time when he was not”). Christ was thus a son of God, not by nature, but only by grace and adoption. This theory logically evacuates the doctrine of the Incarnation of God in Christ of all meaning: if God did not become man, then the world has not been redeemed and the faith itself eventually dissolves.

In 321, Arius was denounced by a synod at Alexandria for teaching a heterodox view of the relationship of Jesus to God the Father. Because Arius and his followers had great influence in the schools of Alexandria—counterparts to modern universities or seminaries—their theological views spread, especially in the eastern Mediterranean.

By 325, the controversy had become significant enough that the Emperor Constantine called an assembly of bishops, the First Council of Nicaea, that formally condemned Arianism and, under imperial pressure, formulated and promulgated the Nicene Creed.  Arianism, however, did not disappear as the emperor’s son and heir was an Arian, and Arianism was furthered by Anomeanism which was a radical variant of Arianism that held that the Son was “unlike” (Greek: animoios) the Father.

The letter ascribed to Jude, the brother of Jesus, brought many back to the original meaning: indicating that the sexual dimension of Sodom’s sin involved going after “flesh” (Greek: σάρκα transliterated as sarkos) that was “different/strange” (Greek: ἕτερος transliterated as heteras)–of nonbelievers or Fallen ones–and that the ultimate sin was lack of charity and friendship.  The word “homosexual” does not exist anywhere in the text, nor does “same-sex.”  “Homosexual” does not appear before the end of the nineteenth century, and “same-sex” relationships are not defined before the twentieth century. To find the word “homosexual” in a Bible is easy with the numerous modern editions published by various sects and cults, but it does not appear in any of the original documents.  The words “homosexual” and “same sex” are inserted words in numerous contemporary erroneously bad editions and have led to the rise of hatred for people, the drive to execute LGBT members in the most diabolical nations on this planet from Uganda and Nigeria to the USA.  At the same time it has led to the creation of a separation of people worse than what the German people did when Adolf Hitler rose to power and the Christian

churches celebrated the destruction of Jewish synagogues (Kristallnacht), arrest of women, children, elderly and babies and festivals given on news of the Jews mass extermination (Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome), with the Roman Catholic church, the Lutheran (official) Church of Germany, the Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other evangelicals celebrating publicly and in private.  Ninety-one Jews were killed and 30,000 Jewish men—a quarter of all Jewish men in Germany—were taken to concentration camps, where they were tortured for months, with over 1,000 of them dying. Around 1,668 synagogues were ransacked, and 267 set on fire (“‘German Mobs’ Vengeance on Jews,” The Daily Telegraph, November 11, 1938, cited in Gilbert, Martin (2006). Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction. Harper Collins, p. 42).

This evil not only impregnated the German Reich but spread like a thunderous virus into Austria where in Vienna alone 95 synagogues or houses of prayer were destroyed (loc. cit., pp. 30-33) and the Roman Catholic, Protestant and evangelical clergy celebrated the destruction in a manner almost as nefarious as the encouragement of genocide of homosexuals in Nigeria by the pseudo-pastor Scott Lively and would-be but unlicensed psychologist Marcus Bachmann of Minnesota, husband of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (both are Lutherans and celebrate the writings of the spiritual grandfather of Adolf Hitler and the Lutheran church in Germany) whose xenophobia is worse than any Nazi who breathed from 1939-1945. 

Bishop Martin Sasse, a leading Protestant churchman, published a compendium of Martin Luther’s writings shortly after the Kristallnacht; Sasse “applauded the burning of the synagogues” and the coincidence of the day, writing in the introduction, writing: “On November 10, 1938, on Luther’s birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany.”   Sasse urged the German people to heed these words “of the greatest anti-Semite of his time [Martin Luther], the warner of his people against the Jews” (read: Bernd Nellessen, “Die schweigende Kirche: Katholiken und Judenverfolgung,” in Büttner (ed), Die Deutschen und die Judenverfolgung im Dritten Reich, p. 265; the German evangelicals were the strongest supporters of Hitler’s murderous programs as exists identically in the USA with the insanity of Iowa’s self-proclaimed prophet-pastor and former coach Robert Vander Plaats who leads the charge against those who do not share his concept of god nor accept his diktat on the correct lifestyle in a Kingdom of God that Vander Plaats terms FAMiLY [sic].) Diarmaid MacCulloch argued that Luther’s 1543 pamphlet Von den Jüden und jren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies) was a “blueprint” for the Kristallnacht (MacCulloch, Diarmaid (2004). Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490-1700. New York: Penguin Books Ltd, 2004, pp. 666-667).

On November 15, just days after the initial pogrom was started by the Nazis, Evangelical Lutheran Bishop Sasse distributed a pamphlet entitled Martin Luther on the Jews: Away with Them! (Martin Luther über die Juden: Weg mit Ihnen!).  In this tract the German Lutheran bishop reprinted excerpts from Luther’s notorious 1543 pamphlet, Against the Jews and Their Lies, urging the destruction of Jewish property (cf. http://jewishquarterly.org/issuearchive/article6524.html?articleid=452).  Rejoicing in the terrorism of the Nazis in the early years of the twentieth century, identical to the call for the execution of homosexuals in Nigeria, Uganda, Liberia, and other intolerant African nations by Scott Lively and other far-right evangelical extremists in the USA, Bishop Stasse claimed that Kristallnacht was fulfilling the goals of Luther; the Nazis were acting as Christians.  Luther’s psychology has been studied by numerous professionals, but the most succinct reads:

Was Luther am ordinären und kriminellen Ablaßhandel und Papsttum geißelte und anprangerte, war sicher echte Empörung, aus grundanständiger Motivation und wirklichem Gerechtigkeitsempfinden entstanden. Aber Luther war nicht nur ein Großer im Guten, es war auch ein ganz Großer im Schlechten: in der Glaubensfrage überhaupt, in der Frauenfrage, in der Bauernfrage, in der Herrschafts- und Obrigkeitsfrage und in der Judenfrage, und er litt auch an dem paranoiden Auserwählt-Syndrom, wie die meisten religiösen Führer. Seine haßerfüllten und vernichtenden Urteile gegenüber den Juden, Fremden und Andersdenkenden unterscheiden sich, obwohl “nur” religiös und nicht rassisch motiviert, wenig – aber doch in der Vernichtungsfrage – von denen der Nationalsozialisten, kein Wunder, daß diese sich gern auf ihn beriefen, im Einklang mit einigen evangelischen Bischöfen (z.B. Sasse, Lebensdaten). Betrachtet man die Blutspuren, die die meisten Religionen hinterlassen haben, muß man zu dem zwingenden Urteil gelangen, daß die meisten nichts taugen, mit am wenigsten die der “drei Betrüger” (Moses, Jesus, Mohammed), wobei man Luther hier ruhig als den vierten großen Betrüger dazu zählen darf; sie sind zum großen Teil Tarnkappen und Verkleidungen psychopathischer, psychopathologischer,  soziopathischer und krimineller Machenschaften. Religionen und Sekten sind vielfach ein Hort und Schutzreservat für psychisch Gestörte, Verbrecher und Geschäftemacher. So sicher Luther kein lumpiger Geschäftemacher war, wie vielfach die Päpste, Bischöfe und ihre globale Ablaß-Mafia (Tetzel) seiner Zeit, so sicher liefert er – zumindest aus heutiger Sicht – dramatische Zeichen von Soziopathie und Verbrechertum. Seine Psychopathographie sei einer anderen Arbeit vorbehalten. Hier geht es um den Lutherischen Antisemitismus, von dem die evangelische Kirche sich längst hätte klar und deutlich – sozusagen “lutherisch” – distanzieren müssen.

(On the “Jewish Question” and Luther which can be compared with Hitler, see: http://www.sgipt.org/sonstig/metaph/luther/judens.htm) The continuing assault on homosexuals and those seeking same-sex marriages in the wasteland of Iowa and other backward states in the USA under the grip of theological terrorists from Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) and Indiana to New Jersey and Florida, Sasse, held to a strict literalist interpretation of scripture and not only opposed the Jews, but those who committed adultery, were homosexuals, and read, saw, or even printed pornography, his arguments now used by Iowa’s self-proclaimed defender of the family, Robert Vander Plaats and other dangerous demagogues in the

USA.  The fact that Iowa and other radical right states take no action against the incendiary invocations of Vander Plaats and his rabid army of Christian defenders, makes Iowa and other states complicit in future assassinations of LGBT communities and other marginalized groups: their governors and legislators must be held accountable for their people’s crimes against humanity and each legislator who does not raise his or her voice against Vander Plaats and similar miscreants are no better than those who remained silent during the purge and putsche of Adolf Hitler.

So popular was the German Luther, that until July 2011, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann praised her radical WELS church and the writings of Martin Luther before abandoning it in favor of political opportunism.  Martin Luther’s treatise On the Jews and their Lies (1543), exercised a major and persistent intellectual influence upon the German practice of anti-Semitism against Jewish citizens and has led to numerous members in the WELS to enter the KKK and USA version of the Nazi Party.

The Nazis in Hitler’s Germany publicly displayed an original of On the Jews and their Lies during the annual Nuremberg rallies, and the city presented a first edition of it to Julius Streicher, the editor of Der Stürmer, which described Luther’s treatise as the most radically anti-Semitic tract ever published (cp. Michael, Robert (2006). Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, chapter 4 “The Germanies from Luther to Hitler,” pp. 105–151; and Hillerbrand, Hans J. “Martin Luther,” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007. Hillerbrand writes: “[H]is strident pronouncements against the Jews, especially toward the end of his life, have raised the question of whether Luther significantly encouraged the development of German anti-Semitism. Although many scholars have taken this view, this perspective puts far too much emphasis on Luther and not enough on the larger peculiarities of German history”).

Schutzstaffel (SS) Chief Heinrich Himmler, initially a supporter of, defended Ernst Röhm — the homosexual leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA [Brown Shirts]) after the Nazis the Nazi Party purged the homophile clubs of LGBT Berliners. In keeping with the writings of Luther and other evangelicals, Hitler outlawed academic and pornographic sexual publications in a manner that Iowa’s Vander Plaats has copied for his infamous “Contract” for Tea Party and conservative GOP presidential candidates to sign—a contract that Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum rushed to sign with a fervor greater than any Nazi known while Hitler lived.

Following the spirit and law of Hitler, Vander Plaats whose extremist speechifying has barked out orders to outlaw all pornography, re-establish the mythological family in Christianity—a family where there are twice as many divorces as there are marriages, and end homosexuality in the same manner that occurred in March 1933, when Kurt Hiller, the organizer of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft(Institute of Sex Research), was imprisoned to a concentration camp. Vander Plaats supporters in private “schools” such as the Pella, Iowa “Christian school”, like the Hitler Youth, began their attacks in private, in imitation of that fateful day of 6 May 1933, when Hitler Youth members attacked the Institute of Sex

Research and publicly incinerated its library and archives in the streets, are irrational panic-mongering mercenaries in Vander Plaats’ xenophobic army in a wacky exercise in revisionist history by claiming that basic rights have never been guaranteed in the USA.  Bachmann’s pastor requested that the presidential candidate in the USA leave the Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church for fear that its controversial stand (its pastor, who no longer accepts calls from the media or researchers and requires his secretary to ask all callers the nature of their inquiry and their church affiliation as if the secretary was the Grand Inquisitor, claims that the Pope is the anti-Christ which the church claims is Biblical {as did Martin Luther, but has no foundation when reading Matthew 16:18}and holds the former German monk Martin Luther as being divinely inspired { http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/michele-bachmanns-church-says-the-pope-is-the-antichrist/241909/}, a view Mrs. Bachmann publicly claims she does not hold as she “loves Catholics”) could hurt her chances to win the presidency and thus restore the USA to being a Protestant Christian nation (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bachmann-left-church-at-pastors-request-official-says/2011/07/15/gIQAfGGuGI_story.html?wprss=).  Although Bachmann and her family had stopped attending the church in 2009, it was not until June 21, 2011, that her name was formally withdrawn from its membership roles.

The Nazis of the Third Reich, being prototypes for FAMiLY functionaries and supporters in Iowa and South Dakota, including the Bachmanns and Santorum, destroyed some 20,000 books and journals, as well as some 5,000 images. They also seized the Institute’s rosters of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender patients.  After the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler promoted Himmler, who then zealously suppressed homosexuality, saying: “We must exterminate these people root and branch … the homosexual must be eliminated” (Plant, Richard (1986), The Pink Triangle: the Nazi war against homosexuals. New York: H. Holt, p. 99).  In 1936, Himmler established the “Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung der Homosexualität und Abtreibung” (“Reich Central Office for

the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion”). The Nazis officially declared that homosexuality was contrary to “wholesome popular sentiment”, identifying gay men as “defilers of German blood” (this is the same argument used by Robert Vander Plaats who equates all sexual diseases from STDs to HIV and AIDS to homosexual activity, although medical science shows that no one, heterosexual or homosexual, is immune to the equal opportunity viruses, and makes Vander Plaats crusade for dollars easier as most Iowans remain ignorant of medical fact because of evangelicals misuse of scripture that none can read in the original Attic Greek). The Nazi régime incarcerated some 100,000 homosexuals during the 1930s (Bennetto, Jason (1997-11-01). “Holocaust: Gay activists press for German apology”. The Independent at  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_/ai_n14142669), with concentration camp prisoners, homosexual men were forced to wear pink triangle badges (cp. Pretzel, Andreas (2005). “Vom Staatsfeind zum Volksfeind. Zur Radikalisierung der Homosexuellenverfolgung im Zusammenwirken von Polizei und Justiz”. In Zur Nieden, Susanne (2005). Homosexualität und Staatsräson. Männlichkeit, Homophobie und Politik in Deutschland 1900-1945. Frankfurt/M.: Campus Verlag, p. 236).  It is interesting to note that Hitler used the Bible and Martin Luther to define marriage—and like Martin Luther, Hitler had no idea of what the Bible really said—as he was busy reading Martin Luther’s “translation” of the scriptures that had little in common with the original scrolls and texts, and nothing in common with the Codex Vaticanus, which is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible (Old and New Testament and is dated, palaeographically, to the 4th century CE; there major differences in the two

codex and other codices, for Codex Bezae (written in the sixth century and has been used for centuries to argue that Jesus was Cesar, see: http://www.carotta.de/subseite/echo/tumult-e.html although the Greek characters do not come through easily) says that Jesus was angry, rather than compassionate {Codex Sinaticus}, when he healed a leper (Mark 1.41). The Sinaiticus omits “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever” from the Lord’s Prayer; and are words that Protestants add to the end of the Lord’s Prayer, as with Martin Luther and evangelicals) and the Codex Sinaiticus (Hebrew: קודקס סינאיטיקוס‎, Greek: Σιναϊτικός Κώδικας) which is an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible written in the fourth century CE. 

Contrary to Maggie Gallagher who was the original founder for the National Organization for Marriage (its oversight committee includes Chuck Stetson who is Chairman of the Board, Bible Literacy Project that has as its purpose to put the Christian Bible in all classrooms public and private and educate teachers as its authenticity, reliability and historicity), Luis Tellez (President, Witherspoon Institute Board of Trustees to promote traditional marriage, wants divorce illegal, and works against stem cell research and other scientific issues) and others, and who has spoken out that the Bible demands that marriage is between one man and one woman–that is not true anywhere in the Bible.  The word “marriage” is found only as a reference to sexual union without gender specification.