Divorce Exceptions

My friends got married recently. My Catholic friends. Yeah, that means they're never getting divorced. My protestant friends hate on this. I guess they love divorce? No, I'm kidding. But no, seriously, divorce is never permitted. 

The relevant Bible passages are Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9. 

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. - Matthew 5:32

I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery. - Matthew 19:9 

 For some reason, protestants think that this creates an exception for adultery. This is implausible for two related reasons. First, the passages in question, as read in English, distinguishes between sexual immorality and adultery. Secondly, the Greek explicitly makes this distinction, for the Greek word porneia is not the Greek word for adultery, which is moichao. And in fact, the word moichao is used in these two passages for the word adultery. So, now we ask, what does porneia mean?

Porneia is basically an illicit relationship, or a sexual relationship that would not validate a marriage. In the Old Testament, the word is used to describe incestuous relationships (Lev. 18:6-18). In the New Testament, the same idea is there, as in 1st Corinthians 5:1, which reads, 

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife.

 This demonstrates that fornication or sexual immorality is what we commonly understand it to be, sexual relations between persons who are not actually married, it is pre-marital, not extra-marital. So, let's plug in a modern example I'm sure many Christian protestants would agree is sexual immorality: same-sex marriage. Is same-sex marriage sexually immoral? Sure is. But is that a real marriage? Sure isn't. But the concept still exists, yeah? Yeah. So say a gay man is "married" to another man, gets "divorced" because he becomes a Christian, get's therapy, pray the gay away and all that jazz, and decides to marry a woman. Is he then an adulterer for marrying her? No, because Natural Law in general, and Christianity in particular, doesn't recognize his gay marriage as a valid marriage to begin with, and so there was no real divorce. He was sexually immoral, no doubt, but he was not and will not be an adulterer for having married a woman. Same thing goes for ancient times, where there were incestuous marriages that the pagans recognized as a valid marriage. No, those are not marriages, or adulterous, but invalid and sexually immoral. So, far from allowing an exception to adultery, these passages show no such thing, and merely talks about invalid marriages where one is not in adultery but is sexually immoral. 

This is consistent with what Jesus teaches in Luke 16:18, when he says, 

Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Jesus gives us no qualification here, because there is none. Protestants say there is, but where? Not here, nor in Matthew. 

There are further problems with the typical protestant reading, which are thoroughly discussed here by Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D. who is not a Catholic. He writes, 

In spite of its popularity, this interpretation has several problems. In the first place, it contradicts the immediate context where Jesus rejects the Mosaic provision of divorce as being against God’s creational plan for the permanence of the marriage union: "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matt. 19:6). The present imperative of the verb (kovizeto) "let not put asunder" enjoins the cessation of a practice in progress, namely, the severing of marriage unions permanently established by God.

In the light of Christ’s refusal to accept the Mosaic provision for divorce, it is hard to imagine that He would make allowance for the dissolution of marriage in the case of sexual misconduct. If the latter were true, Jesus would be contradicting what He had just affirmed regarding the permanence of the marriage union. His teaching would represent not a rejection of the Mosaic concession but merely an interpretation essentially similar to that of the Shammaites. But the Pharisees certainly understood Jesus’ teaching to be in conflict with Moses ("Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?"—Matt 19:7). The clear conflict between Jesus’ teaching on the permanence of the marriage union and the Mosaic concession, logically rules out the wider meaning of porneia as sexual misconduct. [...] 

A third problem with interpretating the exception clause as sexual misconduct is that it contradicts Paul’s "no divorce" teaching in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11. In this passage, Paul claims to give Christ’s own command by enjoining the wife not to separate from her husband and the husband not to divorce his wife. The total prohibition of divorce by Paul reflects the teaching of Jesus found in Mark and Luke. [...]

This conclusion is supported by the fact that there is no provision in the Pentateuch for divorce in the case of adultery. The penalty for proven adultery was death (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22, 23-27) and not divorce. The same was true in the case of a woman who had engaged in premarital sex before marriage (Deut 22:13-21). She was stoned to death and not divorced. There are no indications in the Pentateuch that divorce was ever allowed for sexual misconduct.

A fifth problem with interpreting the exception clause as sexual misconduct is that it fails to take into account the astonishment of the disciples at the saying of Jesus. As Edward Schillebeeck points out, "If Matthew 19:9 is taken to mean that Jesus was siding with the followers of the school of Shammai, who permitted divorce on grounds of adultery, then the astonishment expressed in the apostles’ answers would be incomprehensible—‘then it is not expedient to marry’ (19:10). Their astonishment is only explicable if Christ in fact rejected all possibility of the dissolution of marriage. His rejection is reinforced by the statement: ‘Not all men can receive this precept, but only those to whom it is given’" (19:11).

I've really only heard one objection to this online when I discuss the particulars, and that is, "Well, I'm divorced, and if you're correct, then I'm still married to my ex, and I simply can't accept that." You'd think I'm strawmanning here, but I promise you I'm not. 

Relevant.