http://biblebrowser.com/matthew/19-9.htm

Take note particularly that in that translation, the word translated as 'immorality' is πορνεια, defined in Strong's as "harlotry (including adultery and incest); figuratively, idolatry".

http://original.biblebrowser.com/greek/4202.htm

I have yet to read any convincing commentary that suggests Jesus explicitly approves of divorce for any other reason. What that means for practicing Christians is their own business as far as I'm concerned. Most strict protestants/evangelicals I've known also feel divorce is OK in cases of abuse, fwiw.

The whole issue illustrates the difficulties of translation and the brand of fundamentalism that claims 'literal' interpretation.

The conservative definition of "traditional" is whatever they define it to be.

And you'll be happy to know that they have a long tradition of defining "traditional" this way.

Thus, there is a strong conservative "civil rights tradition," which consists of using "individual rights" to bash "group rights." They adopted this position--pioneered by David Duke's "National Association for the Advancement of White People"--shortly after abandoning the previous conservative "civil rights tradition," which consisted of using "group rights" to bash "individual rights."

National Review, August 24, 1957, “Why the South Must Prevail,” (presumably written by William F. Buckley):

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/001467.html

The South does not want to deprive the Negro of a vote for the sake of depriving him of the vote. Political scientists assert that minorities do not vote as a unit. Women do not vote as a bloc, they contend; nor do Jews, or Catholics, or laborers, or nudists--nor do Negroes; nor will the enfranchised Negroes of the South.

If that is true, the South will not hinder the Negro from voting--why should it, if the Negro vote, like the women's, merely swells the volume, but does not affect the ratio, of the vote? In some parts of the South, the White community merely intends to prevail on any issue on which there is corporate disagreement between Negro and White. The White community will take whatever measures are necessary to make certain that it has its way.

What are the issues? Is school integration one? The NAACP and others insist that the Negroes as a unit want integrated schools. Others disagree, contending that most Negroes approve the social sepaation of the races. What if the NAACP is correct, and the matter comes to a vote in a community in which Negroes predominate? The Negroes would, according to democratic processes, win the election; but that is the kind of situation the White community will not permit. The White community will not count the marginal Negro vote. The man who didn't count it will be hauled up before a jury, he will plead not guilty, and the jury, upon deliberation, will find him not guilty. A federal judge, in a similar situation, might find the defendant guilty, a judgment which would affirm the law and conform with the relevant political abstractions, but whose consequences might be violent and anarchistic.

The central question that emerges--and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by meerely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal--is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes--the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced ace. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage.

National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence....

The South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the Negro as a servile class. It is tempting and convenient to block the progress of a minority whose services, as menials, are economically useful. Let the South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is merely asserting the right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races, and so long as it does so by humane and charitable means, the South is in step with civilization, as is the Congress that permits it to function.”

What a tradition!

No-fault" divorce was pioneered in the United States by the state of California with the passage of the Family Law Act of 1969. The Act was signed by Governor Ronald Reagan on September 4, 1969[6], and it took effect on January 1, 1970

Even so, McCain, like so many others, left his first wife because HE was having an affair. Regardless of any exceptions, his subsequent marriage is un-Christian. And untraditional.

Right,in his case. *He* was committing the immorality (adultery) that would allow *her* to divorce him with a clean conscience, per some of the NT. His actions were, as you say, violative of Xianity's traditional views on marriage, no matter what Gospel one turns to.

There is no doubt that the NT hates divorce. But the absolute prohibition (which did not apply to merely divorce, but rather, to remarriage after it) has generally been a Catholic thing.

Even so, McCain, like so many others, left his first wife because HE was having an affair. Regardless of any exceptions, his subsequent marriage is un-Christian. And untraditional.