rewriting history to justify a bias

The National Organization for Marriage (an ironically named group for which the sole intent is to KEEP people from marrying) is on a tour of states to try to raise funds and awareness before a Supreme Court Case they believe is forthcoming.

Their turnout has been low (I don't think more than 100 have shown up at any of their rallies) and at each stop, they've been met by equal or greater numbers of pro-equality protestors.

This is a quote from one of the organizers:

“What if Martin Luther King, Jr. would have listened to those who tried to silence him and tell him that his faith has no place in the public square — that he should be silent? You are a part of a new civil rights group – a civil rights group dedicated to protecting the most fundamental and basic institution known to mankind: marriage.”

This is what I want to discuss briefly, this new, Evangelical belief that marriage is some sort of ancient, unchanging, fundamental building block of society.

Having taken a Sociology course (yes, just one), I know that's not true. The majority of people in the world, both currently and historically, do not practice monogamous relationships (Marriage = 1 man + 1 woman as seen on many poster boards). Throughout history, polygamy is actually the most common form of marital status. It was widespread in the Old Testamant (come to think of it, I'm not even entirely sure when that went away. Does anyone know? At some point in the bible, does God reverse course on this one, or is the conversation about someone asking Jesus about a woman whose husband dies and she remarries and then they all die so who is she married to in heaven...is that the justification/explanation for why polygamy is bad again?) and it's legal under Islam and various other religious sects.

My point, which has been made far more often by far more people than me, and probably far more eloquently, is just that this whole idea is a modern, western concept. We are now trying to re-write the whole of history to fit our current view to justify biases we hold against gays and lesbians today. If the anti-equality forces were honest in their arguments and simply said, "this goes against Judeo-Christian values held by most Catholic and Protestant denominations," they would at least maintain my respect for intellectually honest. But to try and claim that their worldview is "fundamental" and "historical" is ridiculous in the face of actual historical analysis as well as almost all Sociological evidence as well.

Hell, lately even biology argues against the idea that monogamy is somehow inherent to societal norms...birds do it bees do it...