Ajai Prakash, a Christian preacher and member of Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, is one of many members of the Coalition who has signed a petition insisting that the Iowa state legislature break up existing marriages by declaring that marriages can only consist of one man and one woman.

The trouble is that this tradition is pseudohistory. It doesn't exist! In the Bible, Abraham himself had two wives at the same time, and King Solomon, beloved of the Bible’s god and revered for his wisdom, had many many wives. The god of the Christian Bible clearly endorsed marriages that defy the one man one woman model.

There is nowhere in the Bible that commands that marriage can only be between one man and one woman. The Bible describes monogamous heterosexual marriages, yes, but it never says that’s the only kind of marriage that can exist, and its holy men often had different marriages.

Present-day marriage bigots in Iowa churches are making up this tradition. It’s a false tradition based on fake history! Furthermore, many Iowa churches practice same-sex marriage as a sacrament. Why do Donald Trump’s preachers in the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition think that the Iowa state government and the US federal government have any business choosing sides in Christianity, and saying which Christian churches can sanction which kinds of marriages?

What’s more, tradition is a terrible foundation for law. Sometimes, traditions are wrong. The traditions of slavery and prohibiting women from voting were long held in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that they should exist today.

Ajai Prakash and the other narrow-minded members of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition should better educate themselves about history, and should cultivate more compassion before they go around lecturing other people about morality.

A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to enshrine pseudohistory and biblical illiteracy in a Christian versus Christian battle within the US government.

We don’t have time for that kind of nonsense. America is better than this petty squabbling about other people’s marriages.

Listen to more about the pseudohistory of right wing Christian claims of a tradition of heterosexual-only marriage at the About the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition Podcast.