I’m responding to Mike Hughes’ letter in your April 30 edition (“Check out Deuteronomy”). He states that the Bible is not clear that marriage is between one man and one woman. Genesis 8:24 says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Nowhere does it state that marriage is between man and man or woman and woman. It is very clear that marriage is to be between a man and a woman.
As far as the polygamy issue, I don’t know why or how polygamy came about in the Old Testament but it did; sometime during the New Testament it was abolished and marriage was to be between one man and one woman. I don’t know any scripture about that and I would never claim to. But I do know that when polygamy was around, it was a man with several wives, not a man with several husbands or a woman with several wives.
God-loving people like myself do not “use the Bible to mask their prejudices while pretending that it justifies them”. I believe in God and what the Bible has to say: It’s as simple as that. I wish Mr. Hughes and his partner Mark all the best and many years of happiness.
This article appears in May 21-28, 2009.