{"id":474,"date":"2011-07-01T16:56:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T16:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/07\/conservative-judaism-reacts-to-gay-marriage.html"},"modified":"2011-07-01T16:56:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T16:56:00","slug":"conservative-judaism-reacts-to-gay-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/07\/conservative-judaism-reacts-to-gay-marriage.html","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Judaism Reacts To Gay Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Now that New York has made gay marriage legal, it is instructive to judge the reactions of various religious groups.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a litmus test of whether they place morality over tradition. \u00a0The most conservative (small \u201cc\u201d) fought against gay human rights and lost.\u00a0 Their commitment is to ancient texts and laws no matter how outdated.\u00a0 After all, you can\u2019t undo what God has said even if God\u2019s pronouncement was somewhat less than eternally moral.<\/p>\n

Liberal religious groups were, by and large, behind the passage of the law.\u00a0 That\u2019s because they hardly believe in God to begin with, least of all an authoritarian law-giving God.\u00a0 However, some moderates straddle the line and one of these is the Conservative Jewish movement.<\/p>\n

Their rabbis\u2019 starting point is never to question whether something is right and moral, but whether (and how) it can be twisted into some interpretation of Jewish law.\u00a0 They did this with their absurdly long debate about accepting women into the rabbinate and they\u2019re doing it again with all things gay.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s \u201cForward\u201d has an excellent appraisal of the movement\u2019s inability to choose morality over primitive religious rites<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In the Conservative movement \u2014 which sees itself as Judaism\u2019s big tent \u2014 some rabbis borrow heavily from kiddushin [the \u201clegal\u201d rite of marriage] and other required rites to conduct gay commitment ceremonies, while others avoid them altogether and craft their own celebrations. Still others opt not to officiate at same-sex weddings in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u201cKiddushin is between a man and a woman, and this is something different from that,\u201d [Rabbi Elliot] Dorff said in an interview with the Forward. \u201cThe liturgy of the sheva brachot [the seven blessings] would [also] need to be changed. It does not fit into the Halachic categories or the legal categories of kiddushin.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Keep in mind that Rabbi Dorff, cited above, was among the authors of the more tolerant responsum on the issue.\u00a0 Of course, tolerance is a relative term:<\/p>\n

The [more tolerant] responsum, written by rabbis Elliot Dorff, Daniel Nevins and Avram Reisner, was\u2026restrictive in some parts, but a model of acceptance in others. For instance, citing the specific wording of the Torah\u2019s ban on homosexuality, the document accepted some forms of homosexual activity but reaffirmed the Conservative ban on male-on-male anal sex. But the responsum also invited gay Jews to apply to rabbinic schools\u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m fascinated by their graphic discussion of the kind of sex that gay men can have.\u00a0 (\u201cMale-on-male anal sex!!!!\u201d\u00a0 It sounds like the cover of a gay pornographic video.)\u00a0 Do they really think that their god cares about this kind of stuff?\u00a0 Here\u2019s how they have dealt with gay marriage:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not prepared at this juncture to rule upon the Halachic [Jewish legal] status of gay and lesbian relationships,\u201d the document read. \u201cTo do so would require establishing an entirely new institution in Jewish law that treats not only the ceremonies and legal instruments appropriate for creating homosexual unions but also the norms for the dissolution of such unions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course one of the great contradictions of the Conservative movement is that its rabbis are authorities in a body of Jewish \u201claw\u201d that no one in their movement takes seriously.\u00a0 That\u2019s because the laity wants to live in a modern world, even if they do like to \u201cpray\u201d with indecipherable chanting and demand that the shul\u2019s kitchen be kosher.\u00a0 For them these are just cultural markers that they enjoy (with little rational consideration).\u00a0 For their rabbis these are aspects of a \u201claw\u201d that only the rabbis regard as anything close to binding.\u00a0 And the only opportunity that these rabbis have to enforce these \u201claws\u201d is when you need something from them.\u00a0 Like a wedding.<\/p>\n

My advice to homosexuals who consider themselves Conservative Jews is to stop being Conservative Jews.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty clear that your rabbis don\u2019t regard you as the equals of heterosexuals.\u00a0 If they did, their responses would be quite different.\u00a0 They would be more along the lines of:\u00a0 \u201cMazal Tov!\u00a0 When can we set a date?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that New York has made gay marriage legal, it is instructive to judge the reactions of various religious groups.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a litmus test of whether they place morality over tradition. \u00a0The most conservative (small \u201cc\u201d) fought against gay human rights and lost.\u00a0 Their commitment is to ancient texts and laws no matter how outdated.\u00a0 After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25,27],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-liberal-religions-and-theologies","tag-morality"],"yoast_head":"\nConservative Judaism Reacts To Gay Marriage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Now that New York has made gay marriage legal, it is instructive to judge the reactions of various religious groups.\u00a0\u00a0It's a litmus test of whether they\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/07\/conservative-judaism-reacts-to-gay-marriage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conservative Judaism Reacts To Gay Marriage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Now that New York has made gay marriage legal, it is instructive to judge the reactions of various religious groups.\u00a0\u00a0It's a litmus test of whether they\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/07\/conservative-judaism-reacts-to-gay-marriage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-01T16:56:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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