"Jesus would rather kill, not marry, gay people" - Franklin Graham

[Angrboda]

As noted in another thread, the fact that same-sex marriages had to be explicitly outlawed seems to strongly suggest that same-sex marriages were in fact a reality at the time.  The idea that they would make a law outlawing a practice that did not occur is absurd.  And thus, Steve's contention that same-sex marriage does not exist in history would seem to be an exaggeration, at best. 

Not at all. A law against it could also mean that some either tried it, proposed it, or heard of it and the powers that be employed the same reasoning I did to deny the change in definition. Without more information you are making a lot of unsupported inferences. For example, if the modern courts had upheld the traditional definition, you would never say that same sex marriages were part of the definition of marriage. You would be arguing in a circle. 

Numerous examples of same sex unions among peers, not age-structured, are found in Ancient Greek writings. Famous Greek couples in same sex relationships include Harmodius and Aristogiton, Pelopidas and Epaminondas and Alexander and Bogoas. However, in none of these same sex unions is the Greek word for "marriage" ever mentioned. The Romans appear to have been the first to perform same sex marriages.

Wikipedia || History of same-sex unions

There appears to be some question as to the extant of the practice, but given attitudes towards homosexuality historically, the absence of information is hardly conspicuous. It is true that Roman law did not acknowledge "conubium" between male partners, but to attempt to argue that same-sex marriage didn't exist in Rome at the time seems little more than quibbling about semantics. (You realize of course, you're still on the hook for such, ne?) You seem to be arguing that if the word marriage isn't used, then no marriage occurred. Which is a ridiculous argument, and not a substantive reply to the issues being discussed.

There's also the following which I have only cursorily examined but which also appears to put the wood to your argument.

In the late 16th century, the famous French essayist Michel de Montaigne wrote about two marriages between people of the same sex. The first involved women in eastern France, the second a group of men in Rome. At the time, same-sex marriages were not recognized by religious or civil law, and sodomy – a term that included a wide range of sexual acts – was a crime. As a result, when those involved were discovered they were usually brought to trial and punished, sometimes by death.

These episodes, along with many others, reveal that even in Renaissance Europe, marriage was a highly contested issue.

Marriage between two men or two women might seem like a concept that has emerged only in recent decades. For centuries, however, same-sex couples have appropriated marriage in their own ways. I investigate a particularly notable example of this – the second of the two cases recounted by Montaigne – in my recent book “Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome: Sexuality, Identity and Community in Early Modern Europe.”

A same-sex marriage ceremony in… Renaissance Rome?