How do you respond to people who use your own language against you in this way:

"Marriage already HAS been redefined. Polygamy was once the norm... acceptable to God, now it's taboo. Gay marriage is no more a violation of natural law than that was."

One of the smart guys explained it here once.

I would butcher it if I tried to remember how they said it....

Well, it never really changed. God may have granted in a specific instance, for the taking of more than one wife, just as he allowed for divorce under the old covenant, but the nature of marriage has not changed since Adam and Eve.

That doesn't make sense. Polygamy still meets the equation that *the product of a mans sexual function joined with the products of a womans sexual function = a new human being*. Gay marriage will forever be a fundamentally barren equation.

The Hebrew bible and the Koran condemn polyandry however. That would be a woman taking more than one husband. That would be closer to a violation of natural law since the products of the mens sexual function would be useless once the single woman was already pregnant. Only one creation would ever be possible regardless of the number of times the equation was enacted.

Polygamy is found in the Bible but this was NOT acceptible to God... hence the Ten Commanments - "Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery." People lied, cheated, stole, killed.... ALL were commanded by God NOT to do these things. People did them. Just because people do them does not mean it is acceptable to God. Clearly, violating the commandments is not ok or he wouldn't have given them to us. He was trying to make it clear to us that this behavior is NOT acceptable.

Gay marriage... no different.. c'mon! I pose this question... if every single one of us decided to be gay, what would happen? Humanity would die out.. that's right. So, how can anyone in their right mind think this is a "norm"! A man and a woman's bodies are made to fit together.. in perfect union to create new life. Tell me how a woman and a woman create new life? How does a man and a man? How does the species go on? Oh wait... it can't! The answer you will be given is through artificial means. Usually when I have a conversation about gay marriage.. I usually just end it with saying.."if we were all gay, that would be the end of humans." It isn't ok to engage in that behavior... plain and simple. People do. People lie, cheat, steal and kill. That doesn't mean it should be acceptable.

Lisa

Polygamy has never been the norm.

See the problem is people do not understand how the natural law works. Nor even what the issue here is.

There are three ends of marriage (speaking of natural marriage, the ends are raised up in sacramental marriage)

1. Procreation
2. Unity (that is, a common life, aid to each other)- This end is both an end in itself and further serves the end of procreation which is why procreation is the higher end (a common life serves for the bringing up of children)
3. After the fall- relief of concupiscence

Now homosexual relations cannot fit under marriage since, at the very least, the primary end is ontologically impossible. They cannot procreate. So even before calling them a sin, we see that they cannot fit into marriage

Now polyandry, a woman taking multiple husbands, is against the natural law both in its secondary principles (since it weakens the unitive end) but also in the first principles, since additional husbands do not aid procreation, and indirectly hardm it.

However, polygyny (taking multiple wives) does not go against the first principles of the natural law. Both Rachel and Leah could have kids after all! It does, however, go against the secondary principles of natural law, namely the unitive. However, it does not necessarily destroy or prevent that end, it tends against it and weakens it surely. This means that polygyny is not intrinsically evil, but it can only be permitted by God.

And God did that. He allowed polygamy. So no, polygamy was not adultery. It was not a sin, it was allowed by God. But it was allowed by way of a dispensation.

An analogous thing is that natural law goes against incest. Why? Because it demands that we extend the bonds of human society, and also because of mixed affections. The affection I have to a relative should not be mixed with the affection of a wife. However, where is the line drawn? Natural law only intrinsically, in all times and places, forbids relations between direct descendants. Even siblings are not against the natural law in such a way that such relations could never ever happen. They did and they had to. God has since forbidden them absolutely by divine law.

But take an uncle and niece, or two cousins. That also tends against the natural law, but here it can be permitted, and the Church has and does dispense this impediment. Human law serves as a further determination of natural law here, in part because contrary to popular conception natural law is not always a black and white, all or nothing standard. It is more nuanced than that

Can you explain this one?

Marry lest you burn....

The point being that provided the other ends are not being denied, marriage may be "used" for the relief of concupiscence

Sure it was.

Got it. Direct from Sacred Scripture.

How so? How can God have a "do not commit adultery" command then?

Lisa

It's not adultery if a man is truly married to more than one woman. In certain circumstances (levirate marriage), polygyny was commanded by God.

When did God command a man to have more than one wife?

God instituted marriage with Adam and Eve and Jesus Christ elevated it to a sacrament.

Lisa

In Levirate marriage, as already stated

The Mosaic law, given by God, explicitly allows polygyny. Again, polygyny does not go against the natural law in an absolute way, unlike polyandry or sodomy.

On the contrary, It is stated (Galatians 3:19) that the Law "was set because of transgressors [Vulgate: 'transgressions']," namely in order to prohibit them. Now the Old Law mentions plurality of wives without any prohibition thereof, as appears from Deuteronomy 21:15, "If a man have two wives," etc. Therefore they were not transgressors through having two wives; and so it was lawful.

Further, this is confirmed by the example of the holy patriarchs, who are stated to have had several wives, and yet were most pleasing to God, for instance Jacob, David, and several others. Therefore at one time it was lawful.

I answer that, As stated above (1, ad 7,8), plurality of wives is said to be against the natural law, not as regards its first precepts, but as regards the secondary precepts, which like conclusions are drawn from its first precepts. Since, however, human acts must needs vary according to the various conditions of persons, times, and other circumstances, the aforesaid conclusions do not proceed from the first precepts of the natural law, so as to be binding in all cases, but only in the majority. for such is the entire matter of Ethics according to the Philosopher (Ethic. i, 3,7). Hence, when they cease to be binding, it is lawful to disregard them. But because it is not easy to determine the above variations, it belongs exclusively to him from whose authority he derives its binding force to permit the non-observance of the law in those cases to which the force of the law ought not to extend, and this permission is called a dispensation. Now the law prescribing the one wife was framed not by man but by God, nor was it ever given by word or in writing, but was imprinted on the heart, like other things belonging in any way to the natural law. Consequently a dispensation in this matter could be granted by God alone through an inward inspiration, vouchsafed originally to the holy patriarchs, and by their example continued to others, at a time when it behooved the aforesaid precept not to be observed, in order to ensure the multiplication of the offspring to be brought up in the worship of God. For the principal end is ever to be borne in mind before the secondary end. Wherefore, since the good of the offspring is the principal end of marriage, it behooved to disregard for a time the impediment that might arise to the secondary ends, when it was necessary for the offspring to be multiplied; because it was for the removal of this impediment that the precept forbidding a plurality of wives was framed, as stated above (Article 1).

A man could have more than one wife, BUT he couldn't have someone else's wife.

Yes, he was 'restricted' to his own wives! Anyone else's and he was in BIG trouble...

If a man died leaving no children, his brother had to marry his widow, even if he was already married himself.