Biblical marriage…that is what we have been told is behind the push to ban same-sex marriage. But what is biblical marriage? Well, according to defenders of Chick-fil-A’s Dan Cathy the “biblical definition of marriage” apparently means marriage between one man and one woman and not “a man, his wife, and his concubines; a man, his wife, and her slaves; a man and his many wives; a rapist and his victim; etc.”

Take a look at this infographic explaining it:

Bizarrely, The National Organization for Marriage’s Ruth Institute has replied to the above infographic by stating:

This image has been making the rounds on Facebook, in an attempt to discredit those of us who insist that removing the gender requirement is redefining marriage. Look carefully at the image and you will see that in ALL of the examples, both genders are represented. This image reinforces the conservative position about needing a gender requirement, it does not undermine our position. And here is why: marriage has always been understood primarily as the means to bearing and raising children. Yes marriage provides companionship to the married partners, but that has never been the reason we needed marriage as a society.

ThinkProgress responded with:

Apparently, it was okay to redefine marriage so that women were not treated as subordinate property — as they were in every example in the graphic — but suddenly it’s problematic to give same-sex families the same respect and security as other couples. If NOM and its Ruth Institute really believe that the blatant hypocrisy of selective Biblical interpretation adds integrity to their argument, let them continue to flaunt it. It only illuminates their obvious bias against gays and lesbians.

There is something else to this. Gender roles have changed a lot over the last two thousand years, and those changes are reflected in the way marriage is defined. When Dan Cathy or Brian Brown or Maggie Gallagher or any one of these anti-marriage pushers talk about marriage and the Bible, they do so out of hypocrisy for they refuse to back all forms of Biblical marriage. They pick and choose what they want in the Bible. . .this is especially true of Maggie Gallagher. No woman should be allowed to talk about Biblical marriage or push Biblical marriage because they are suppose to be home tending to their husband’s needs.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/08/06/646781/nom-defends-biblical-marriage-including-slavery-concubines-polygamy-and-rape/