(in California, there is a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage; this is my response)

In biblical times, people mostly lived in extended families or small tribes. There was a limited amount of land available for hunting and gathering, and even less land available for agriculture. These families and tribes were constantly trying to expand their holdings to ensure their survival. One way to do this was to take land away from other tribes and families. Brute strength, economic and political manipulation ruled the day; not what one thought was ethically or morally correct. In order to protect themselves, keep their land, and provide workers for the extensive labor that was part of their daily lives, they needed to increase the number of their family or tribal members. This was achieved through raids where they kidnapped and enslaved other family or tribal members, or by inviting travelers to join their family or tribe. But it was mainly accomplished through procreation.

The prohibitions against homosexuality were not promulgations enacted by religious leaders enforcing morality, because morality as we know it today was not practiced back then. The bans were enforced by family or tribal elders because people in homosexual relationships did not procreate and provide more family or tribal members to ensure the continued existence of these entities. ( In the Grecian culture, homosexual relationships were accepted if the men or women had satisfied their culture's procreative imperative, i.e., they had had a heterosexual relationship that provided offspring.)

Also, homosexual relationships were the products of romantic attraction. Up until the sixteenth century relationships were determined by parents and tribal elders. (The romantic love you read in books and see in movies is the product of creative license, not historical accuracy.) Licensed marriages did not become an official institution until the Roman era when property rights became important. In biblical times marriage occurred when a man, after the family arrangement, declared a woman was his wife, and it was sanctioned by the tribal elders.

While the Bible, in numerous passages, prohibits homosexuality, people need to understand that the Bible as we know it has been translated and reinterpreted so many times, that we are not reading the Bible as it was written and compiled almost two millennia ago. A literal acceptance of the Bible is not feasible because of the creative license taken by interpreters, and opinions injected into rewritings of the Bible by religious and political leaders.

I am not gay, but I advocate acceptance of same-sex marriage because it is a matter between two individuals and should not be subjected to people's misinterpretation of Biblical morality, or their own moral or physical objections to homosexuality. Do you see homosexuals trying to break-up heterosexual marriages? I say live and let live.