Gay Marriage in Antiquity: How Far Have We Come?

There are many problems with the religious argument against gay marriage. Most are rather obvious: the extreme changes our society has undergone since the Bible was written, the changes the Bible has undergone itself due to many translations from the original Hebrew, and the hypocritical pick-and-choose method that most Christians use when it comes to following the Bible’s and God’s teachings. Even more important is the fact that marriage is not actually explicitly defined in the Bible as a union between a man and a woman. As if all this weren’t enough, there is even mention in the Bible itself of a same-sex relationship, though the exact nature of the relationship is uncertain:

“Gay men like to point to the story of passionate King David and his friend Jonathan, with whom he was ‘one spirit’ and whom he ‘loved as he loved himself.’ Conservatives say this is a story about a platonic friendship, but it is also a story about two men who stand up for each other in turbulent times, through violent war and the disapproval of a powerful parent. David rends his clothes at Jonathan's death and, in grieving, writes a song:

This is damning evidence indeed for an argument built entirely on the teachings of the Bible. If the Bible “praises enduring love between men” (Miller), then why are religious conservatives so up in arms about the idea of gay marriage?

It is important to note that though the ancient Greek and Roman cultures share many of the traditional ideas about marriage that today’s religious groups do, they hold these ideas for very different reasons. Where gay marriage is seen as wrong by Americans today because certain Christian ideals, gay marriage in Greece and Rome was only considered taboo because one of the males involved would have to take on the role of the bride.

So the question still remains: can modern America learn from the same-sex behavior and attitudes of ancient Greece and Rome? The short answer: no, we can’t. Though these ancient cultures were far more accepting of same-sex interaction than our modern American culture is, the fact remains that they both share similar ideas about how marriage should be, and there is no room in any of these cultures for the concept of gay marriage as anything more than a joke (as in ancient Rome, witnessed by the reactions to the Emperor Nero) or a corruption of the sanctity of marriage (in modern America). Perhaps someday our descendants can look back in American history and see that at some point we finally changed our Constitution to allow all of our citizens to be equal under the law. Until then, modern Americans will continue to agree with the Greeks and Romans about the existence of gay marriage.

Dover, K.J. Greek Homosexuality. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Hubbard, Thomas K., ed. Homosexuality in Greece and Rome. California: University of California Press, 2003.

Johnson, Ramon. “Gay Marriage Rights: Where is Gay Marriage Legal?” 7 April 2009. <http://gaylife.about.com/od/samesexmarriage/a/legalgay marriag.htm>

Lucian, True History 1.22 (Hubbard 10.11: 471-472).

Miller, Lisa. “Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy.” 6 December 2008. <http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653>

Suetonis, Nero 28-29 (Hubbard 9.7: 390-391).

Tacitus, Ann. 15.37 (Williams, Appendix 2: 250).

Williams, Craig A. Roman Homosexuality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.