Divorce has always been a tricky thing in the Watchtower world and has been subject of many articles in the literature. For a year - from January 1972 until December the same year, "Christian" husbands could technically screw anything with a pulse in the animal world without giving his spouse a "biblical" reason to divorce him. The only thing he had to be careful about if having sex with humans - men or women was to use the "rear entrance"
Anyway, read how the GB in their vast "wisdom" handles such matters. Good job they have this direct line with God. Well here it is:
*** w72 1/1 pp. 31-32 Questions from Readers ***
Questions from Readers• Do homosexual acts on the part of a married person constitute a Scriptural ground for divorce, freeing the innocent mate to remarry?—U.S.A.
Homosexuality is definitely condemned in the Bible as something that will prevent individuals from gaining God’s approval. (1 Cor. 6:9, 10) However, whether an innocent mate would Scripturally be able to remarry after procuring a legal divorce from a mate guilty of homosexual acts must be determined on the basis of what the Bible says respecting divorce and remarriage.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus Christ said: “Everyone divorcing his wife, except on account of fornication, makes her a subject for adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matt. 5:32) On a later occasion he told the Pharisees: “Whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.”—Matt. 19:9.
Thus “fornication” is seen to be the only ground for divorce that frees the innocent mate to remarry.The Greek word for fornication is porneía. It can refer to illicit sexual relations between either married or unmarried persons. The ancient Greeks, in rare instances, may have understood this term to denote acts other than illicit sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. But the sense in which Jesus used the word porneía at Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 must be ascertained from the context.
It should be noted that in Matthew chapters 5 and 19 “fornication” is used in the restricted sense of marital unfaithfulness, or illicit relations with another person not one’s marriage mate. Just before bringing up the matter of divorce in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ pointed out that “everyone [married] that keeps on looking at a woman so as to have a passion for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28) Consequently, when he afterward alluded to a woman’s committing fornication, his listeners would have understood this in its relative sense, namely, as signifying a married woman’s prostitution or adultery.
The context of Matthew chapter 19 confirms this conclusion. On the basis of the Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus pointed out that a man and his wife became “one flesh,” and then added: “What God has yoked together let no man put apart.” (Matt. 19:5, 6) Now, in homosexual acts the sex organs are used in an unnatural way, in a way for which they were never purposed. Two persons of the same sex are not complements of each other, as Adam and Eve were. They could never become “one flesh” in order to procreate. It might be added, in the case of human copulation with a beast, two different kinds of flesh are involved. Wrote the apostle Paul: “Not all flesh is the same flesh, but there is one of mankind, and there is another flesh of cattle, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish.”—1 Cor. 15:39.
While both homosexuality and bestiality are disgusting perversions, in the case of neither one is the marriage tie broken. It is broken only by acts that make an individual “one flesh” with a person of the opposite sex other than his or her legal marriage mate.
The change came here. Apparently God, the Holy Spirit and all those bigwigs had changed their minds and the informed the GB about it, and as the "loyal" servants they are they immediately changed the rules:
*** w72 12/15 pp. 766-768 Questions from Readers ***
Questions from Readers• Why, according to Matthew’s accounts, did Jesus use two different words—“fornication” and “adultery”—in discussing the proper grounds for divorce? Is not the only ground for Scriptural divorce “adultery,” as the term is generally understood?—U.S.A.
At Matthew 5:32 Jesus’ words are: “However, I say to you that everyone divorcing his wife, except on account of fornication [Greek, por·nei´a], makes her a subject for adultery [Greek, moi·khei´a], and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Similarly, at Matthew 19:9 we read: “I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication [por·nei´a], and marries another commits adultery [moi·khei´a].”
The account, therefore, does use two distinct words. Let us first see what they mean and then consider the significance of their use. Moi·khei´a, one of the terms used in Matthew’s account, is properly translated “adultery.” The English word “adultery” comes from the Latin adulterare, which means, basically, “to alter” and, by extension, “to corrupt or make impure, as by the addition of a foreign or a baser substance.” Thus we speak of ‘adulterating’ food, making it impure by adding foreign substances. A marriage is ‘adulterated’ when one of the parties defiles the marital relationship by having relations with someone outside that relationship. This idea of adulterating or corrupting, and of unfaithfulness to a sacred relationship, is also inherent in the Greek term moi·khei´a. Therefore, both in Greek and in English, the focus is on the effect illicit sexual relations have on the marriage relationship, the adulterous mate being guilty of introducing someone else into that relationship, corrupting the union that should include just the husband and wife.
What of the other term used? “Fornication” focuses attention, not on the effect sexual immorality may have on a marital relationship, but on the nature or quality of the sexual activity itself. This is true, not only of the English word “fornication,” but also of the Greek word, por·nei´a, used in Matthew’s account. Our interest, of course, is primarily in the Greek term used by the Gospel writer. For, no matter what the word “fornication” may commonly be understood to mean by English-speaking people, it is what the word used in the Bible meant to the writer and the people at that time that really counts and is decisive.
When “fornication” is mentioned today, people commonly think of sexual relations between members of the opposite sex, relations carried on outside marriage yet consisting of intercourse in the ‘ordinary’ or natural way. So, many have understood that, when Jesus said that “fornication [por·nei´a]” was the only ground for divorce, he referred only to intercourse in the ordinary or natural way between a wife and a man not her husband, or, by extension, between a husband and a woman not his wife. But is that the case? Does por·nei´a, the word used in Matthew’s account, refer only to such natural sexual relations? Or did it include all forms of immoral sexual relations, including those between individuals of the same sex and also perverted forms of sexual relations between members of the opposite sex? Just what did por·nei´a mean to people in the first century when Jesus was on earth? And does a sincere and careful investigation of this meaning call for a reappraisal of our understanding as to what the Scriptural ground for divorce is?
A thorough study of the matter shows that por·nei´a refers to all forms of immoral sexual relations. It is a broad term, somewhat like the word “pornography,” which is drawn from por·nei´a or the related verb por·neu´o. Lexicons of the Greek language clearly show this to be so.
They show that por·nei´a comes from a root word meaning “to sell,” and it describes sex relations that are licentious and not restrained (as by the restraint of adherence to marriage bonds). Thus, of the use of the word in Bible times, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament states that por·nei´a described “illicit sexual intercourse in general.” Moulton and Milligan’s The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament says it is “unlawful sexual intercourse generally.” The sixth volume of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says that por·nei´a can come to mean “‘sexual intercourse’ in gen[eral] without more precise definition.”
It is because of its being a broad term (broader in its scope than the word “fornication” is in the minds of many English-speaking people) that many Bible translators use expressions such as “gross immorality,” “sexual immorality,” “sexual sins,” or similar, when translating por·nei´a.
Does this mean that unnatural and perverted sexual relations such as those engaged in by homosexuals are included in the meaning of this term used by the apostle in recording Jesus’ words? Yes, that is the case. This can be seen by the way Jesus’ half brother Jude used por·nei´a when referring to the unnatural sex acts of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Jude 7) Concerning the use of por·nei´a by Greek-speaking Jews around the start of the Common Era, the sixth volume of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says: “??????? [por·nei´a] can also be ‘unnatural vice,’ . . . sodomy.”
What, then, is the significance of the Bible’s use of these terms and what does it reveal as to the valid Biblical grounds for divorce? It shows that any married person who goes outside the marriage bond and engages in immoral sexual relations, whether with someone of the opposite sex or someone of the same sex, whether natural or unnatural and perverted, is guilty of committing por·nei´a or “fornication” in the Bible sense. Such sexual relations do not refer to minor indiscretions a person might commit, as by a kiss or caress or embrace, but refer to immoral use of the genital organs in some form of intercourse, natural or unnatural.
We find principles in the Law covenant in support of this broadened viewpoint. It is clear that under that Law marriages were dissolved when a mate committed serious sexual sins, including unnatural ones, inasmuch as such mate was put to death according to God’s own instructions.—Compare Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 18:22, 23, 29; 20:10-16; Deuteronomy 22:22; as well as the words of the Christian apostle at Romans 1:24-27, 32.
Taking Jesus’ words for what they mean, therefore, when a mate is guilty of such serious sexual immorality the innocent mate may Scripturally divorce such a one, if he or she so desires. One who obtains a divorce on such Scriptural grounds is also Scripturally free to remarry, not thereby being subject to a charge of adultery.
This clearly marks a correction in the view expressed on previous occasions in the columns of this magazine, but faithful adherence to what the Scriptures actually say requires it. There is much more that can be considered on the matter and for that reason it will be discussed more completely in a coming issue of this magazine.
This is all an excellent example of how insane everything gets when idiots actually think that old crap, written by incredibly superstitious lunatics several thousand years ago, should have any influence in our lives.
Norm