It's all rather interesting these discussions on Virginity and remaining "pure" until marriage, focusing on a church somewhere in America which was televised on 60 Minutes program, channel nine Australia later part of 2001. I believe that a Pentecostal church in South Australia also was into something similar. Just recently December 2001 it has cropped up again. You will usually find that the advocators of such in this country of Australia are the religious puritans know as Christians. Is calling your-self Christian some sort of ego trip?

Many Christian moralists who themselves are usually sexually frustrated think that you also should suffer like they do. Actually I believe that they would like to think differently about sexual issues but Satan scares the hell out of them and keeps them in bondage to the church. These puritans also think that they have some sort of moral right to tell everybody else how they should conduct their lives. It is also interesting to note that many of these so-called do-gooders played around a bit themselves before they tied the knot

Does the bible talk about remaining a virgin until marriage? Does the bible talk about you being married in a church and/or by a minister, or priest? Does the bible say that you have to attain the age of 21 or over? Do you have to remain a virgin until marriage? The answer to all of this nonsense is "No". Maybe some do-gooder can advice me as to where these scriptures are to be found. It's a good opportunity for them to blow the dust of their holy book and have a bo-peep (peek) so to speak.

Let's see what we can dig up about what the Hebrew Israelite language has to say about the subject of marriage.

Boy oh boy the Christian puritans are not going to like this one little bit. Pity that they didn't study the culture of the day instead of going off half- cocked and very ill informed at that, as to the facts. I believe that there are intelligent people within the church so one must ask just why they don't put this intelligence to good use and seek out the culture of the day by understanding ancient history?

As the Christian bible is the supposed Greek translation of the Hebrew let's look at the Greek word for marriage. Once again this comes from an unknown root and the gender (sex) is not specific, but in the verb form it generally meant to give or espouse a daughter to a man, today we would say "to a husband" or "to wed a wife."

The English word for Marry is a 14^th century word derived from the French word Marier, which is rooted in Latin. So, by the time that it entered into Western Culture, it had already been defined by a long history of "Unions" between a man and a woman. In other words a sexual relationship. A lot of these unions became written contracts as the women were purchased to be a wife such as when one buys animals etc. The age of these young women according to ancient documents was in the vicinity of 12-14 years about the time of their first menstruation. Today's Christianity sure goofed on this one, and in the process have conned the general public as well.

Why should the young women of today remain sexually frustrated until the age of 21 -25? Just because some puritan says so. This frustration is defying what nature intended. We know today that in our own culture that it is advisable for young people to become more mature before they marry, but this should not mean that they should abstain from their naturally given sexual desires which is one of the most powerful forces known. Instead they should be taught how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, which may lead to abortion, which is also frowned upon by the puritan do-gooders even though there is no biblical scripture to support their stand on abortion. This business about keeping yourself pure until you marry is not the bed of roses that Christianity makes it out to be. This does not mean that your marriage is built on a solid foundation till death do us part. What happens if your partner turns out to be a lousy lover and your neighbour over the road is boasting about the number of orgasms she had last week or whatever. Then you begin to compare and start to wonder what sexual lovemaking would be like with another man. If you happen to be a Christian then the church will have you believe that it is shameful to have such thoughts and that Satan is tempting you to sin. This is psychological torture and has no foundation. This is not the way to wedded bliss.

To summarise. The Hebrew word especially and to some extent the Greek words could very easily apply to same sex unions except no one ever conceived the idea but same sex unions were a happening event. Homosexuals were only seen as a separate and different person in the late 19^th century. This immediately poses a question. How did this word 'homosexual' find its way into the bible? It must have been a deliberate mistranslation of scripture by men at a very late date.

Although modern knowledge allows us to give a broad connotation to the Hebrew term in particular, the fact is that marriage has never been defined as anything other than the sexual union of a man and a woman or women. Given that fact homosexual people talk today about "same sex marriage" this is only a figure of speech, as is in contradiction, and the closest although still a problematical term, would be "same sex marital style union."

There is no factual argument for same sex marriage, because "union" or marriage has never meant anything other than a man in sexual union with one or more women.

What we should be talking about here is relationships where two become one whether their male, female or convertible, and there is no better term for this than "union."

The church will have you believe that masturbation is sinful, fornication is sinful, contraception is sinful, lust is sinful, so really what the church advocates is a church wedding. What is the main purpose for this? What it really means in a nut- shell is the church minister or priest is granting you and your partner permission to have sex.