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Traditional Marriage Ethic

The view that marriage is a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, and that sexual relations belong only within it.

Its holders ground it in Genesis 1–2, Jesus’ teaching on marriage in Matthew 19, and Paul’s letters, and it has been the teaching of the church since the earliest centuries. It became contested in the late 20th century as Western law and culture changed and some churches revised their teaching. The Anglican Lambeth Conference 1998 restated it in Resolution I.10, and the Global Methodist Church formed partly to keep it after the United Methodist Split.

It remains the official teaching of the Catholic and Orthodox churches; Protestant families such as Anglicans, Lutherans and Methodists are divided. Affirming critics argue that the biblical texts did not have committed same-sex relationships in view.