"What about having multiple wives? Where does it stop? The definition of marriage -- the accepted social norm for thousands of years -- came from the Word of God -- our moral code."
What about multiple wives. They existed both in Old and New Testament times. They were part of Biblical history. Nowhere in the Bible is multiple wives forbidden, except in one case where Bishops of the early church were called to be the "husband of one wife."
Plural marriage is perfectly acceptable, Biblically.
Since your tag line describes you as a godless atheist how can you possibly have any spiritual understanding of the Scriptures, the very thing you say you don't believe in?
The scripture you refer to is in the New Testament which is the new convevant that ALL believers are under.
Therefore "one wife" is new covenant commanment
I think, actually, it was the Romans (and/or the GreeKs) who were heavily into single spouse marraiges, probably for dynatic and property inheritance reasons, and from there it became a part of Christianity as Christianity became the state religion of the late Roman Empire. In the Middle East and Orient, polygamy has always been accepted for those who could afford it.
Curiously, one of the greatest achievements of Christianity historically has been the reduction of the sexual exploitation of children. In the pre-Christian Roman world, children and slaves were routinely prostituted and sexually exploited, both heterosexually and homosexually. Christianity carried over the Judaic taboo on homosexual behavior.
Net, net, what many of the homosexual rights advocates want is a return to a sort of late Roman hedonism, without the stoic virtue that made Rome great during the republic: sex anywhere, anytime, with anyone or anything, without consequence.