Now I’m not a bigot – even George Brandis thinks that I have a right to be. In fact, some of my friends are Christian, so it’s not that I object to Christians per se and, until recently I was prepared to live and let live. I thought if Christians want to marry, where’s the harm?
However, after a comment that one of them made about marriage equality, I must say that I’ve been forced to reassess my whole attitude on the subject. They told me that if I did some research, I’d find that marriage had a long history and it shouldn’t be changed just to accomodate the latest fad.
So I did just that.
And well, I discovered that marriage has been around for a long time. A very long time. It’s been around nearly as long as we have. In fact, it was shortly after Adam and Eve’s children have that family dispute that we have the first mention of marriage in the Bible. (For those of you who don’t have a knowledge of the Bible, Cain killed his brother Abel then runs off to the Land of Nod where he takes a wife. Personally, I’ve always thought that it was the fact that Adam and Eve weren’t married that led to them being such a dysfuntional family! Ok, it wasn’t totally their fault – there was nobody around to perform the ceremony!)
Anyway, after that we have plenty of marriages: Abraham and Sarah, Noah and his wife who doesn’t rate a name, Jacob and Leah and Rachel (he wants to marry Rachel but as Leah is the oldest he has to marry her before he can marry her sister – it’s hardly polygamy when it’s all in the family like that), Jonathan and David. Heaps. So, it’s pretty clear that marriage predates Christianity by several thousand years. Consequently, I don’t see how Christians can claim that their marriages are “proper” or “legitimate”, because you can’t just change the definition of marriage to suit the latest group who want to claim it as their own.
Yes, I know. Some of you are going to suggest that they’re not doing any harm and if Christians want to marry, what business is it of mine?
And, up to a point, I can agree. If they were just content to call it a “marriage” and leave it at that, I’d have no problem. However, one must consider the children. I fear that many Christians try to indoctrinate their children to be like them rather than allowing them to grow up “naturally” and make up their own minds when they’re of a mature age.
Then there’s the teasing. I know of several children who’ve been very upset by other children teasing them at school. “My parents are Christians,” one told me, “that’s not my fault, is it? So why do the other kids mock me and call me names?”
I mean what can you say to child at a time like this?
So if Christians want to form partnerships, then by all means, let them. But don’t let them call it “marriage” which pre-dates the Christian religion by several thousand years.
And certainly don’t let them have children. After all, Tony Abbott was the product of a so-called marriage between Christians.
