Matthew Vines

Author of 'God and the Gay Christian,' newly released in a revised and expanded edition for 2025 ( Executive Director @ReformationP.

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

Public support for non-monogamy and polyamory has risen considerably in recent years. Many advocates argue that normalizing non-monogamy is a progressive reform in line with women's equality and same-sex marriage.

But this view is seriously misguided, as I argue in this new talk. Normative monogamy played a critical and underappreciated role in enabling the rise of democracy, women's rights, and gay rights—and eroding that norm will undermine rather than advance those values. That is true whether the norm of monogamy is challenged from the right (i.e., patriarchal polygamy) or from the left (i.e., polyamory and consensual non-monogamy).

From the teaching of Jesus himself onwards, Christianity has always upheld monogamy as an important moral standard. That norm has had a far greater and more beneficial impact on our society than many realize, and it cannot be altered without producing significant unintended negative consequences. In short: Monogamy matters, and it is very much worth defending.

Why Monogamy Matters, from the 2025 @ReformationP conference:
(0:00) Introduction
(0:36) Same-sex marriage and slippery slope predictions
(7:46) Non-monogamy statistics
(11:42) Understanding consensual non-monogamy
(16:29) A Christian case for non-monogamy?
(20:43) Polygamy in the Old Testament
(28:15) Emerging Jewish opposition to polygamy
(31:58) Jesus's teaching on marriage and monogamy
(34:16) The New Testament and monogamy
(39:28) Polygamy vs. monogamy historically
(45:13) Polygamy's math problem
(47:06) How monogamy benefits societies
(49:22) How polygamy harms women and children
(51:37) How polygamy harms men and boys
(53:15) How polygamy harms societies
(55:58) What about modern polyamory?
(57:03) Polyamory's math problem
(58:46) Polyamory's community problem
(1:07:16) Polyamory's gender problem
(1:12:48) Gay men and monogamy
(1:19:06) Why monogamy matters

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

The number isn't quite that high, but you're right that the gay issue has been uniquely damaging for the credibility of Christian sexual ethics more broadly. As someone who thinks Christianity was right on the foundational question of monogamous marriage (and who agrees with @JoHenrich's thesis that the church's ban on polygamy and cousin marriage was a prerequisite for the economic and political success of the modern West), I find this development dispiriting. But a necessary step in changing it is acknowledging that same-sex relationships are not, in fact, intrinsically morally wrong.

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

@angcathalex Wow. Never heard of that. That is... interesting indeed. I doubt Revoice will be expanding its Side B umbrella so widely!

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

@BMcGrewvy Yes, and he describes anger/envy at his bandmates' relationships and lives. Obviously, that's not good, but I fail to see how this makes homosexuality itself "the sin of envy" rather than being an example of a particular gay person describing their particular feelings?

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

@Respectabiggle @TylerLeeConway And what should those who are attracted to the same sex do, in your view?

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

Who is arguing that "exclusive" homosexuality is found in 1,500 species? The point of this is just to rebut the false claims that have long been made that homosexuality must be wrong/unnatural because no other species do it at all (not just exclusively). As it turns out, lots of other species do indeed engage in same-sex behavior in various ways.

Fwiw, I've never cared much either way about this argument because the appeal to animal behavior isn't particularly compelling for whether humans should or shouldn't engage in particular behaviors. (Animals do all sorts of things that humans should never countenance.) But as a rebuttal to the claims that no other species engage in same-sex behavior, it is true.

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

I'm curious: Can you clarify what you mean by "glorifying" homosexuality? If by that you mean presenting being gay as cooler or better than being straight, then I would agree with you; I find that dynamic quite strange and counterproductive. But if you just mean accepting/supporting gay people and their relationships, then I wouldn't agree.

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

@JustinBerkobien I do think it would help to distinguish affirming theology from queer theology. While I agree with the former, I have serious concerns about the latter. Here's a basic overview of the differences if you're curious: https://t.co/JkftglSdHu

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

@JoeGayHistorian It's excellent. Should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of gay rights.

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

I enjoyed joining Pete and Jared at @theB4NP for a conversation about the Bible, same-sex marriage, and what's new in the updated edition of God and the Gay Christian. You can watch it here: https://t.co/Ipm1O43VQn

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

@MattSmith2044 @RonanMcCrea Chapters 6 and 7 are particularly relevant to your post, but the whole book is excellent. Hope you enjoy it!

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

Hi, Glenn—Thanks for responding, and I hope you are doing well. As for your question, every group has struggles regarding its boundaries, and I am on the record that I think the LGBTQ movement needs to do a better job on that front. I also don't use the "+" sign because I find it vague and unhelpful.

But your standard here is not compelling. As long as you assume any random person supports gay rights, then you are justified in claiming that anything they say can now be declared to be the position of the "LGBTQ movement" as a whole? I don't think you would ever let someone get away with such a flimsy kind of accusation by assumed association toward conservative Christians, nor should you.

Pedophilia is widely categorized as a paraphilia instead of a sexual orientation, and it is a particularly abhorrent paraphilia at that. Regardless of what anyone calls it, there are of course no grounds for accepting it. Thankfully, although I have a number of disagreements with more radical LGBTQ activists today, pretty much all of them I've ever met (which is quite a few) would share your and my abhorrence at pedophilia. If anything, many contemporary ultra-progressives are much more likely to obsessively problematize five-year "age gap" relationships of adults who are both in their 30s than they are to tolerate child abuse in any way.

If your view is that particular logical premises lack sufficient guardrails and can too easily be exploited toward dangerous ends, then make that argument. I would actually agree with that when it comes to queer theory in particular, which is why I have been very critical of that field. But you and Lila lose credibility when you don't just say "I think X could lead to Y for these reasons," but you explicitly claim that "the LGBTQ movement is now advocating for pedophilia to be considered a new sexual orientation"—all based on your assumption that this random German med student who gave one talk 8 years ago supports gay rights and might, for all we know, privately identify as queer (complete speculation, of course). This is "I don't know, but I know know" logic, and it can very easily be used to wrongly smear anyone.

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

I have plenty of critiques of contemporary LGBTQ activism, but this post is incredibly dishonest. The clip here is from a TEDx talk a random German medical student, Mirjam Heine, gave in 2018. Heine has no known connection to "the LGBTQ+ movement;" Lila has fabricated that claim from whole cloth.

Heine's talk was dangerously naive and wrong—pedophilia is in no sense a sexual orientation and should emphatically not be viewed as such—but she wasn't arguing for acceptance of any acts between adults and minors, thankfully. She emphasized that acting on attraction to children would be a "disaster" and "wrong without any doubt." That doesn't mean her talk wasn't dangerous: She still deserved fierce pushback for her profoundly misguided ideas on how to prevent these despicable crimes. (She wrongly thought de-stigmatizing attraction to children would make people less likely to act on it. More background on her talk here: https://t.co/L3Zk6S7s0W)

Regardless: It is slanderous to take an 8-year-old clip of someone with no known affiliation with the LGBTQ movement and use it to baselessly accuse an entire group of supporting one of the most vile crimes imaginable.

[Lila Rose @LilaGraceRose]

Horrific. The LGBTQ+ movement is now advocating for pedophilia to be considered a new sexual orientation. 

“Pedophilia is simply just another sexuaI orientation. We need to overcome our negative feelings we have towards them and treat them with respect..”

Being sexually attracted to children isn’t about inclusion; it’s necessitates essential therapy, treatment and strong boundaries to ensure no child is harmed.

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

This is slanderous. This woman, Mirjam Heine, has no known connection to the LGBTQ movement. She was a medical student when she gave this talk in Würzburg, Germany, in 2018, so it is both irresponsible and dishonest of you to say this clip has anything to do with the "LGBTQ+ movement."

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

These statistics aren't even accurate. The "72%" figure comes from a 2019 Office for National Statistics report about divorces in England and Wales. It found that of same-sex divorces specifically, 72% were between women and 28% were between men—which is why the numbers total 100%: https://t.co/ItixVzsOSi.

That means female same-sex couples were more likely to divorce than male same-sex couples in England and Wales in 2019, but it does not mean 72% of lesbian marriages in those countries ended in divorce (much less that 72% of lesbian marriages overall do). In fact, the ONS report explicitly noted, "The relatively small number of divorces among same-sex couples does not allow accurate rates to be calculated at present."

This is not the first time you have misrepresented basic facts in your campaign against same-sex marriage, and your willingness to promote memes like this without first checking to confirm their accuracy does not inspire confidence in your overall representation of facts and data.

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

I enjoyed joining @fakedansavage this week for a friendly debate about monogamy. Dan is a great interlocutor: kind and respectful while also thoughtfully and capably defending his view.

You can listen to the first 25 minutes of our conversation here: https://t.co/Vl1LeqCo5q

[Matthew Vines @VinesMatthew]

My favorite part of the video: "She wasn't even exhausted!" Oh, well, in that case... 😂

Ironically, if civil rights activists had been less strategic in who they elevated and had had less success as a result, you could easily see people making the inverse argument today: "Well, how bad could the injustices have been if they didn't even bother putting their best foot forward to try to change public opinion? Clearly, the harms of segregation have been exaggerated because anyone with a brain would've approached it more strategically if it had been as oppressive as people claim."