When the ‘Pastor’ Marries Four Men: Germany’s Truce with Polygamy

It is a snapshot of cultural collapse: A young German woman with pink hair in clergyman’s robes, facing four men, bestowing her approval on their bizarre sexual arrangement, the details of which we are blessedly unaware. The pro-LGBT pastor is now under fire for blessing the ‘marriage’ of four men who showed up at a pop-up wedding fair at Berlin’s St. Paul the Apostle Church recently. Lena Müller, the 33-year-old clergyperson in question, posted a photo of the ceremony to Instagram.

According to the Times, Müller said that the relationship “consisted of two Latvians, a Thai citizen and a fourth man who she believed was Spanish.” This group of men, which I regret to inform you is referred to as a ‘polycule,’ was pronounced a “marriage in the eyes of God,” according to Müller. The wedding fair was “part of a programme offering free blessing for couples who wish to avoid ‘lengthy formalities,’” which in this case would probably include a Constitutional Court case and new legislation.

“Four young men said ‘yes’ to each other, celebrated love with us and placed themselves under G*d’s colourful blessing … What an honour, that these four asked for a blessing with so much trust,” Müller wrote in her Instagram post, which she has since deleted. I can’t help but suspect that upon arriving at the fair, the polyamorous polycule swiftly identified her as the likeliest pink-haired purveyor of the moral approval they sought.

In response to the online backlash, the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg rushed to defend Müller with the sort of enthusiasm one wishes they still held for their own violated orthodoxies. “We are appalled by the hate waged against her,” they announced, relieved to have finally found a sin worth denouncing. “We stand with them and condemn these attacks to the utmost. We stand with those who are experiencing hostility.” (‘Them,’ in this case, appears to refer to the polycule, rather than an unspecified they/them.)

Iam old enough to remember traditional Christians being damned as bigots for pointing out that recognizing same-sex relationships as ‘marriage’ (legal in Germany since 2017) would inevitably result in the endorsement of all sorts of sexual arrangements, including polygamy. Having gotten over their horror at such claims, progressives are now happily embracing them. “You could see right away that here was so much love between [the four men],” Müller gushed to the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper. “Why should God have anything against there being four of them rather than two?”

Presumably, Müller’s theological instructors should have answered that question; they might even have lent her a Bible. Incidentally, polygamy is still illegal in Germany, but Müller insisted that this doesn’t really matter. “We couldn’t write it down in the church register, because for that you need to have gone through a civil marriage, and in this configuration that would of course not have been possible,” she said. “But I am at any rate convinced that they really did marry in the eyes of God.”

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