Beyond the Supreme Court: A Guide to Settling Gay Marriage

Historian Allan Tulchin researched a same-sex union called an "affrèrement” in medieval France -- a marriage contract between.two men. Homosexual “marriages” also took place in Ireland in the late 12th to early 13th centuries. And all this was accepted. Nothing that could be called homophobic appeared in any European writings until the late 14th century. And even after that, in 1578, 13 same-gender couples were united in a high Mass at St. John Lateran in Rome -- traditionally the Pope's parish church. Vatican clergy participated, and the couples took communion, were blessed by the church’s nuptial scripture, and ate and slept together afterward.