Orthodox Jewish Homosexuals

[rhu]

The "Statement of Principles on the Place of Jews with a Homosexual Orientation in Our Community", despite an awkward title, is amazing. I honestly didn't expect the leadership of Orthodox Judaism in our generation to go on record with such a powerful statement. Signatories include the first vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America, so I think this counts as qualifying as mainstream Orthodoxy. Highlights:

• Embarrassing, harassing or demeaning someone with a homosexual orientation or same-sex attraction is a violation of Torah prohibitions that embody the deepest values of Judaism.

• We encourage parents and family of homosexually partnered Jews to make every effort to maintain harmonious family relations and connections.

• Jews with homosexual orientations or same sex-attractions should be welcomed as full members of the synagogue and school community. As appropriate with regard to gender and lineage, they should participate and count ritually, be eligible for ritual synagogue honors, and generally be treated in the same fashion and under the same halakhic and hashkafic framework as any other member of the synagogue they join.

• Communities should display sensitivity, acceptance and full embrace of the adopted or biological children of homosexually active Jews in the synagogue and school setting.

• Jews who have an exclusively homosexual orientation should, under most circumstances, not be encouraged to marry someone of the other gender, as this can lead to great tragedy, unrequited love, shame, dishonesty and ruined lives.

• We are opposed on ethical and moral grounds to both the “outing” of individuals who want to remain private and to coercing those who desire to be open about their orientation to keep it hidden.

•We affirm the religious right of those with a homosexual orientation to reject therapeutic approaches they reasonably see as useless or dangerous. Most of the mental health community, many rabbis, and most people with a homosexual orientation feel that some of these therapies are either ineffective or potentially damaging psychologically for many patients.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

It's a start. On the one hand, my reaction is, "Do they have any idea what they sound like?? What would they say if someone printed something like this about the place of Jews in the community??"

On the other hand, it's a big step from where they had been, and that had to be difficult. I just hope anyone'll listen to them.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Fascinating...

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

To me the amazing thing is that it makes it possible for Orthodox gays to be visible in the community --- to get aliyot, to be shul members, to not be pressured to undergo a so-called "cure". It asserts that Orthodox and homosexual are not mutually exclusive categories, and it says (as Seth commented in Nomi's blog) that however your shul treats members who don't keep Shabbat or kashrut is the same way it should treat members who are gay. That's HUGE, because most Orthodox shuls have some number of Shabbat violators or kashrut violators.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

It's still wrong to treat people who simply are gay by orientation as you would treat Shabbat or kashruth violators. It presumes that because of their orientation they're definitely going to commit a wrong. It would be like treating someone who confessed that they had loved cheeseburgers before their decision to become Orthodox as a chronic kashruth violator, because they admitted to a taste for the things. It wouldn't matter if they insisted that they didn't EAT them anymore; just the inclination would get them treated as a violator.

I always understood Orthodox policy to treat someone according to what they did, not what they felt a desire to do.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

And that's how I read this document: While remaining steadfast that certain acts are prohibited by halacha, it proclaims that a person's orientation per se does not exclude them from being treated like any other member of the community; that they should not be excoriated, excluded, or pressured to change; and that even if they are known to act not in accordance with the halachot governing sexual behavior, their communal status should not be any worse than any other community member who is known to act not in accordance with other halachot such as those governing Shabbat and kashrut.

And these are not two-bit far-left rabbis, either. Some of the names on that list are gedolei ha-dor, great rabbis of this generation, who are putting their reputations behind the assertion that Judaism demands that we accept and support gay Orthodox Jews as who they are -- both gay and Orthodox.

But you are right that in my earlier response I fell into the trap of using "who are gay" as shorthand for "who are having gay sex", which is not necessarily the same thing. I was careless and I apologize.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

But you are right that in my earlier response I fell into the trap of using "who are gay" as shorthand for "who are having gay sex", which is not necessarily the same thing. I was careless and I apologize.

Apology accepted. But that particular mistaken shorthand is all too common, and it leads people to treat anyone who comes out as having a gay orientation as though they were having gay sex, even if they don't say they are (and may or may not be). People who merely state their orientation should not be treated as though they are violating halacha, even if they are treated as violators-who-are-still-community-members, just like people who break the rules of kashruth or Shabbat. People who openly indicate that they are having gay sex possibly should be treated the same way that people who openly indicate that they are violating the Shabbat or kashruth rules are treated... but I know few people who state whom they're having sex with in synagogue, even if they're straight. And I don't believe the halakhic laws of evidence permit treating someone who is living with a member of the same sex, calling that person their partner, and announcing that they are homosexual by natural orientation, as someone who is having gay sex. Last I knew, you needed two witnesses to the event, without even a blanket to hide the physical deed from the eyes of the witnesses.

Which would mean that people who announce their orientation to the congregation would be in exactly the same position as someone who confesses that they love cheeseburgers, but who has not been observed to be eating one, ever: as though they have violated no rule whatever according to law.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Last I knew, you needed two witnesses to the event...

That's the evidentiary standard for criminal prosecution, and wouldn't apply here.

If someone were to sheepishly admit at kiddush one Shabbat that they drove to shul and parked around the corner, that person would probably not be invited to be the chazzan at Kol Nidre next Yom Kippur, even though it's only on their own say-so; but they'd still be welcome in the congregation and offered aliyot.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Okay, and if someone admitted, sheepishly or otherwise, that they were having sex with the person of the same gender whom they lived with and brought to shul events and introduced as their partner, maybe the same treatment would apply. But if they don't say so, then they're still properly treated -- by Orthodox rules, not mine -- as though they've done nothing wrong.

To make an exception to all the rules about not condemning someone until you're sure of what they did, and say that anyone who states aloud that their orientation is homosexual is automatically to be treated the same as someone who has explicitly admitted to breaking the law, is still using two separate sets of rules, one for gay people and one for straight. I can be glad they've minimized the punishments they propose to dole out to the people who have done nothing but say that they're gay, without thinking they're following halakhic law by doling out any penalties at all. Someone who has explicitly said in front of a member of the congregation that they've had sex with someone of their own sex is a slightly different matter, and I think the proposed standards of treating those as one would treat any other member of the congregation who acknowledged driving to shul on Shabbat, eating shrimp, or something else of that sort, is a good one.