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Greg Koukl: Is Same-sex Marriage Harmful to Society?
Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason answers the question, “Why should a non-Christian think same-sex marriage is harmful to society?”
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I'm eleven years late to the party here, but marriage has already been redefined across the generations. In its earliest days after the establishment of agriculture and the concept of private property rights, marriage was an economic arrangement. It was nothing like Disney's or Hallmark's "lovey-dovey" conception of it. Now that the economic underpinning of it has been greatly reduced (especially with women being allowed to have their own jobs, bank accounts, etc.), there is more of the "soulmate" emphasis. Marriage used to be viewed as an arrangement in which the partners, particularly the man, owned the spouse's sexuality outright. Now (thankfully) we recognize marital rape as wrong. And as for marrying animals, etc., some societies historically have had "marriages" that are at that level of bizarre to the modern Western viewer. In some ancient Indian societies, a younger brother could not marry until his older brother has married. Sometimes, the older brother would marry a tree to free up the younger brother to marry. And Koukl's gripe over permitting polygamy is ironic considering how some Old Testament patriarchs had multiple wives or concubines simultaneously.
2022 and we are seeing everything he said a lot more. A woman married her dog, another married a doll…
Very prescient video.
Do you know what consent is?
Your arguments make no sense.
1. Your claim that this may lead to polygamy or polyandry… so what? What's wrong with consenting adults who love each other under no form of coercing being together? By the way your BIBLE supported polygamous relationships and as for gay marriage being something new, it's not. Go look at Greece or Rome, this form of marriage was around for quite some time before it was ruled socially unacceptable by closed minded bigots like yourself.
You're just making a massive fallacy we like to call the slippery slope fallacy, ie you can't actually argue anything logically wrong with homosexual marriage so instead you make appeals to "look what bad things it might lead to next". How is this any different than saying "we shouldn't allow heterosexual marriage because look what it might lead to next".
2. You then make the oh so common and pathetic argument that homosexual marriage may lead to bestiality. Sorry but what exactly is it that you don't grasp about consent? In a homosexual arrangement we're discussing two fully consenting adults freely making a choice for themselves, in the animal scenario we're talking about rape of a species unable to give informed consent. Also this is again no different than saying "let's not allow heterosexual marriage because it may lead to bestiality", you're not actually addressing anything wrong with homosexual marriage you're just fear mongering about a slippery slope.
3. As for "defining marriage any way we want" you're saying we can't define it as between two couples of any gender, we must only define it as two couples of opposite gender. How is your argument any better at avoiding the very fear mongering you're pushing? You're still defining it the way you want, how is that different from someone defining it the way they want. In neither situation (the way you want or allowing homosexual marriage) is it the exact same as it used to be when it first arose (polygamy). You're just a blatant hypocrite trying to hide his bigotry.
4. You then quickly throw out "a violation of parental rights", wait what? When did allowing two people to get married suddenly start taking away from someones parental rights? Now you're just making shit up. Homosexual marriage equality doesn't make anyone loose anything, it just extends the same rights to two consenting adults who happen to be the same gender, no one is hurt, no one looses any rights, and no one who doesn't want a homosexual marriage needs or is encouraged to get one. It's really that simple, by outlawing it all you're accomplishing is keeping equality away from others, you're not protecting you're or anyone else's rights in ANY way shape or form.
In the end you should feel very ashamed about yourself, you did nothing here but argue a slippery slope fallacy, never actually addressing anything that was wrong with homosexual marriage and instead just fear mongering about other types of marriage you don't want allowed… you're no different than the racists who not long ago used your EXACT arguments against interracial marriage.
Uh… what's wrong with polyamory? If a group of consenting adults really want to group marry, then let them. I don't see how it would harm anyone. People only seem to be disturbed by it because it's "weird" and "different" and not like we used to do things, or because some it's in conflict with some silly religious tradition or scripture – and that's just bad thinking.
Youre really not that bright are you!!!!
Indeed, you must be correct. We can see that the societies that have legalized same-sex marriage have collapsed. like Canada, The Netherlands, Spain, etc. All fallen to dust. Uh, no that didn't fucking happen you fucking moron. If you don't want to to marry another man, great, good for you. Neither do I. I prefer females myself. But, that's because I'm not gay. Pull your head out.
marriage is a social construction and who cares if polygamist and polyandrous get married. marriage is not a solely christian right and you forcing people into your beliefs and also saying that marriage should be done how the christian cult says is against other peoples rights.
you quote parts of the bible and push the ones you don't like to the bin, all you are showing is you are narrow minded and a self righteous twat.
Sanatana Dharma, ancient Egyptian religions, the people of south america and the Romans also the northern European Germanic and Celtic tribe had marriage i could go on with this list civilizations, and it all predates Judaism and the christian cult.
you are the sort of person if the government let would behead a person for been gay or stone to death a woman for been raped and not shouting out or sell them to the rapist. you are just as bad as ISIS but you hide it as you are to scared to follow any convictions Nazarene.
to be honest i think marriage is archaic and really has nothing of any major purpose other than cementing family ties and contract between clans that is it.
Marriage doesn't create children, fucking does.
He failed to mention pedophilia and men and women marrying child. Because then you are disenfranchising this group that would want to marry children of their sexual orientation. Don't laugh because it will happen if we don't change coarse. NAMBLA is pushing for it behind the scenes.
I disagree completely with your idea that allowing same-sex marriage will open society to other sexual unions or lifestyles. Also you don't seem to understand, or at least you misstated the consequences of polyamory. By no means is polyamory a "group marriage". The term marriage has already been redefined by society. But that should not prevent you and your Christian friends to practice your idea of marriage. Why don't you just admit that you don't like homosexuality?
I still don't see the problem with this. Who gives a shit if one lady has eight husbands. doesn't affect me. who cares if that guy has six wives. i don't see the problem. What is the deal with people getting their noses so far up other peoples asses that they have to get involved with other peoples relationships. mind your own fucking business.
Is this idiot for real? Ok same sex marriage is harmful? Wtf? Well straight marriage is way more harmful:
Like child abortions (yay)
Most domestic murders and abuses happen in straight relationships. And I am not making this stuff up, I am a police officer I deal with this crap on daily bases.
I am vet, served 4 ears in marines. I am now a police officer, my wife is a photographer but most of the time she spends helping children who were rejected by their parents.
Me and my wife adopted twin boys, who are now 18 and pursuing their carriers. So tell me how on earth is my family harming anyone?
And you are confusing a loss of religious freedom with not having total power
If you are not gay then legalizing same sex marriage doesn't affect you at all. All you want to do is hate someone the fact is that at one point interracial marriage was illegal because of ppl like you guys who have nothing better to do than worry about other ppls life. Two consenting adults should be aloud to marry if they want.
You act as if marriage has never been redefined. Interracial marriages were illegal once. But it is legal now and it's no longer socially acceptable for hate groups (like Christians) to openly condemn interracial marriage. They just do it amongst each other now.
Slippery slope if I ever heard it. You have faith in a divine lawgiver, but appear to have none in your fellow humans to come together in some sort of an agreement and draw the line, holding each other accountable, aka: governance. You could just as easily argue that the idea of marriage itself, regardless of sex, started this whole "problem". Why not put that concept on the spot?
Furthermore, and this is purely hypothetical, if someday the majority of people see nothing wrong with humans marrying and having sexual intercourse with animals then that's just the way it's going to be. That will become acceptable behavior. I don't think it's reasonable to assume this would ever happen because, unlike yourself, I don't see how you could possibly put something as radical as marriage between man and animal on the same playing field as marriage between man and man; simply for the reason that one is consensual and the other is not. I don't see society heading in that sort of a direction. You're right though, the sky is the limit and who knows what's going to happen "then".
So where is the real harm in all this, if any?
Next it will be humans and animals.
If you say same sex marriage is ok then it's ok for a brother to marry his brother, if LOVE is all you need. Also SEVEN MEN and ONE WOMAN can marry by this logic, an uncle marry his nephew, and for those that say HA HA HA THAT'S NONSENSE, um no it's not because THAT is what they said about same sex marriage, right now people are saying WHAT'S WRONG WITH A BROTHER MARRYING THEIR BROTHER, THEY HAVE RIGHTS TOO IF THEY LOVVVVEEEE THEM. This is dangerous. Kids in these households do worse overall.
This is all about popularity vote. If the majority of people accepts polygamy then it will be legalized to. So this whole idea that it takes two adults to create marriage is just another opinion that can be changed. However a man and a woman is all it takes to create another human.
— They aren't trying to infringe on the rights of you or any religious organisation. If some church doesn't want to marry two men or two women, they don't have to! But if the state, of whom they pay their taxes too, wants to deny them that right, then they are being treated as sub human. And that is against their constitutional rights. And if you want to argue that marriage under the eyes of the state carries no benefits, then I'll be happy to shut you down there, too.
Polyamorous marriages have nothing to do with 2 people getting married. It's a completely different situation. And the same goes for any other form of marriage not defined as 2 consenting individuals. And this argument doesn't even work because you're trying to argue from the viewpoint of society and what individuals think is best. Gay couples aren't looking for acceptance from you or me, they just want the same rights afforded to straight couples from the GOVERNMENT. —
but can be made to pedophilia.
Maybe, the majority do support it. I don't think so, but it doesn't matter. As I said, your side will win and in a decade or so you'll hate the world that this has brought. People will get meaner and meaner, sicker and sicker. Rome wasn't built in a day, rebuilding Rome will happen much quicker.
That is no longer true. The majority in the US support same-sex marriage.
It unreasonable to task somebody with proving a negative, and thats what you're asking for here. Don't ask people to prove that something won't happen. Stick to the merits of the so-called "proof" that Koukl presents that these things will happen.
As soon as making a baby becomes a prerequisite or requirement of marriage, let us know.
There is that bit about the camel, the hare and the coney being unclean because of factually incorrect characterizations of cloven hooves and chewing cud.
Even your proposed "look up" shows your error. TRYING to marry and marrying are not the same thing, are they?
Funny that in 4 minutes Koukl can't name anything harmful about same-sex unions in and of themselves, but still thinks he's come up with the way to convince a non-Christian that same-sex marriage is going to be detrimental to him!
Legal recognition of same-sex unions can happen, based on the characteristics of that type of union. But any theoretical consideration of any other type of relationship, upon the observation of different characteristics, would lead to a different conclusion. Its not the all-or-nothing package that Koukl proposes.
Besides, the case for same-sex marriage isn't simply about what "we want"! Its more about whether the exclusion of same-sex couples is justifiable, particularly given the substantial similarities between their relationships and those of opposite-sex couples and the absence of harms to society or others of recognizing same-sex unions. The same case cannot be made for polygamy or bestiality.
Even if you accept Koukl's claim that legal recognition of same-sex couples amounts to redefining marriage "any way we want", there's no basis to believe that we would be compelled to redefine it n any way that we don't want. And whether "we" is a majority of voters, or a majority of elected representatives, or a majority of Supreme Court Justices, changes in this arena always come down to a majority opinion.
Koukl lays out the false dilemma. We might also recognize that same-sex pairing – which occurs throughout nature – also serves a natural purpose. Quite possibly even the very same natural purpose that opposite-sex pairing serves: creating the best situation for the production of the next generation. So if the natural teleology of marriage centers on producing & preparing the next generation, and same-sex pairing also serves that purpose, we are not faced with the either/or question Koukl offers.
Thanks for summarizing all the bigoted, flawed, discriminatory, and pernicious views against treating your fellow humans equally.
Hi Abel, to even begin talking about God's character, we'd need to agree what God is & what his observable properties are. I've never gotten that far with a theist. You've made a lot of assertions. I'll just pick one ("God made the world & its inhabitants in a certain way") & ask what I asked Craftedashes earlier: How do you know this?
The point is that God, the Creater of everything, the author, and the "Guy in charge" made the world and its inhabitants a certain way. He made men to be with women, and made one man to become one flesh with one women. He saw fit to make it this way, and who are we, the creation, to argue with the Creator; who by the way, gave us all of our reasoning power in the first place?
drumrnva,
We can talk about the character of God all day long, which I wouldn't recommend (mostly because I am still studying who God is and what His character is and don't think that either of us has the full picture), but I think the biggest point to make concerning your last post is not whether we think God's character is honorable and is worth defending.
FURTHER: Are you really going to defend what the character Yahweh "prescribes"? I wish that he *had* prescribed polygamy in those stories, but it's far, far worse. That character is rather fond of meaningless death. Numbers 16:32, the flood, killing Egyptian children, etc. That's the character you're defending. It's laughable.
You have no test or standard for supporting the assertion "God's word is true." *yawn* I never said God said polygamy is OK. The people who wrote all the scriptures apparently practiced it though. Anyway this is all academic– The bible has nothing to do with how our laws are made and administered, & the irrefutable truth is that society's mores are always evolving. It used to be illegal for blacks & whites to marry, & opponents of change used the same slippery slope arguments. We've moved on.
Because, polygamy was practiced does not mean it was approved or demanded by God. There is a great difference between description and prescription. Just because the Bible describes does not mean that God prescribed it. U seem too smart to pick that 1. Defend your position, can you show me where God made it a requirement to practice polygamy?
As for the animals, just because they cannot give a conscientious approval of the contract as humans are able has not stopped people from doing it. So, yes this may be a one sided marriage but it does not negate that people will and have chosen to allow such atrocities.
I have answered twice, sorry you refuse to see it. People have tried to show error in the Bible for 1,000s of yrs & r still empty handed. It is too large an undertaking (in a forum like this especially) to prove every fact in any text. 1 think you are correct on is that nothing can be "proven." U & I cannot prove to someone that either of us exist, if they do not want to believe the evidence. Ancient manuscripts, secular and non writings, & archeology all support Biblical text.
I've asked you to defend your assertion twice. Your refusal to answer is noted. There's no good reason to believe that *any* ancient text is infallible, but I can't prove/disprove ancient history any more than you can. Do you believe that Muhammad ascended to heaven? Re: animals, Koukl employs predictable slippery slope argument. Animals can't understand human language/laws/customs, thus they can't really be married. BTW, polygamy was apparently practiced by those in OT times. Problem?
Nothing in the Bible has ever been shown to be wrong. If you don't agree then give evidence. Don't go into what it means to "prove" something. Just show what has been shown to be wrong. Not what you disagree with or discrepancies in some numbers (3K vs. 30K) etc. but something that is actually falsified or shown to be wrong. The correctness of the scripture is too grand an undertaking. If you have evidence that is contrary present it. What is the meaning of your original statement about animals?
Let's not get into subjective-vs-objective just yet. You assert that "God's word is true". Assuming that by "God's word" you mean the Bible, my question was: How do you know this?
Tell me something that has ever been proven wrong in His word. Do you believe in or understand the difference between objective truth and subjective truth?