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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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NEW YORK, Dec. 6 (JTA) — Even before the ink was dry on the Conservative movement’s decision to accept gay rabbis and allow same-sex commitment ceremonies, its impact was already being felt.
Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement’s congregational arm, immediately announced that he was recommending a change in the organization’s hiring practices, which had required employees to be observant of Jewish law — effectively barring gay men and lesbians.
“I see no reason why we should not revise our hiring policies so we may consider applicants for United Synagogue jobs no matter what their sexual orientation may be,” Epstein said in a statement. “United Synagogue’s leadership will discuss the issue at our next scheduled meeting.”
With advocates on both sides of the issue warning that Wednesday’s decisions by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards could irreparably fracture the movement, the two-day meeting was closely monitored around the Jewish world.
In the end, the committee endorsed three separate teshuvot, or responsa, on the issue. One, by Rabbi Joel Roth, affirmed the movement’s traditional ban on gay rabbis and commitment ceremonies. Another, by Rabbis Elliot Dorff, Daniel Nevins and Avram Reisner, reversed those positions while upholding the biblical prohibition on male intercourse. Both papers earned 13 votes, a majority of the 25-member committee.
A third opinion, by Rabbi Leonard Levy, also affirmed the movement’s traditional position on homosexuality while rejecting the now-common view that homosexuality is an orientation one cannot control. Levy’s position earned the minimum six votes required for acceptance.
Roth and Levy, along with Rabbis Mayer Rabinowitz and Joseph Prouser, resigned from the law committee to protest its endorsement of the liberal Dorff paper.
At the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, leaders long have made clear their intention to ordain gay rabbis if the law committee allowed it. At Wednesday’s meeting, Dorff, rector of U.J.’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, said he expects the seminary to announce a final decision within weeks.
In New York, the Jewish Theological Seminary has been less forthcoming. Though he has said publicly that he supports gay ordination, incoming Chancellor Arnold Eisen promised to consult with faculty, students and the community before making a decision he emphasizes is not halachic in nature.
A survey of opinion within the movement is to be conducted before reaching a final decision.
“We are going to consider what we think best serves the Conservative movement and larger American Jewish community,” Eisen wrote in an e-mail following the decision. “We know that the implications of the decision before us are immense. We fully recognize what is at stake.”
Momentum has been building for years for a more permissive Conservative attitude toward homosexuality. Despite the committee’s 1992 decision upholding the ban on gay rabbis and commitment ceremonies, a number of Conservative rabbis do perform such ceremonies.
That number is expected to grow now that rabbis have received halachic sanction from the movement’s highest legal body.
“I think there will be a significant change,” said Rabbi Ayelet Cohen, a JTS graduate and leader of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, a Manhattan synagogue for lesbians and gay men.
An outspoken proponent of changing the traditional prohibition on homosexuality, Cohen performed commitment ceremonies for gay couples even before the committee’s decision. She said opponents of change no longer will be able to use the law committee’s 1992 statement on homosexuality as an excuse to continue excluding gay men and lesbians from the movement.
“According to the current position of the movement, gay men and women are lesser human beings than heterosexuals,” Cohen said. “Gay people can be kept out of every level of lay leadership in our movement. Until now, rabbis have been able to say, ‘There’s nothing I can do. My hands are tied.’ ”
But by deciding that continuing the ban on gay ordination and commitment ceremonies also is a legitimate position, the committee has ensured that local rabbis who oppose a change in policy will have a halachic authority to cite in making their case.
There is considerably less ambiguity at the movement’s seminaries, where much of the agitation to change policy has originated.
KeshetJTS, a student advocacy group, says a survey showed that eight out of 10 members of the JTS community would support ordaining gay rabbis.
“I think that congregants are ahead of their rabbis on many issues, and this is one of them,” said Rabbi Steve Greenberg, an openly gay Orthodox rabbi and senior teaching fellow at CLAL-the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. “I can tell you that there are people who have wanted to go to the seminary to become a rabbi and have chosen to go elsewhere, and will be thrilled that that option will now be open to them.”
One such person is Aaron Weininger, an openly gay senior at Washington University in St. Louis and a lifelong member of the Conservative movement. His decision on where to apply to rabbinical school hinged on the law committee’s decision.
“I would like to be able to apply to a Conservative seminary, and for both ethical and personal reasons right now that’s not an option,” Weininger told JTA before the vote.
Weininger said he would apply to the University of Judaism, but would also consider JTS if that became an option.
Like other advocates of liberalization, Weininger said what’s at stake is not just the status of lesbian and gay men in Conservative Judaism but the movement’s entire approach to interpreting halacha.
He hopes the decision will lead to greater clarity in the way movement authorities negotiate the line between fidelity to tradition and the demands of contemporary life.
“Morality is at the very core of law, and that law really drives us toward our aspiration of holiness and justice,” Weininger said. “And so if we in turn interpret law to exclude people, we really violate the intent of the law.”
Rabbi Alan LaPayover, one of very few openly gay rabbis who has served as the spiritual leader of a Conservative synagogue — he was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College — called the decision “a very big step.”
Given the nature of the Conservative movement’s process, “they did the best they were able to do,” said LaPayover, the former rabbi at Beth Am Israel in Penn Valley, Pa.
Given the multiple opinions allowed by the law committee, neither advocates nor opponents of change will feel compelled to adjust their positions.
Still, many observers are hopeful that the decision will open a vital discussion within a movement that once was America’s largest Jewish denomination.
Rabbi Menachem Creditor, a leading advocate for change within the movement, said Eisen’s use of the committee debate as an opportunity for discussion at JTS is a step in the right direction.
“That’s a revolution,” Creditor said. “It might be quiet, but I think it’s going to change things on the ground because rabbis can’t ignore the inclusion of whichever teshuvot will be accepted. We can’t ignore it. There’s no hiding it. It’s transparent.”
Source: http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=17355&intcategoryid=4
[Updated on: Thu, 07 December 2006 07:27]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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First I am confused a little:
> In the end, the committee endorsed three separate teshuvot, or responsa, on the issue. One, by Rabbi Joel Roth, affirmed the movement’s traditional ban on gay rabbis and commitment ceremonies. Another, by Rabbis Elliot Dorff, Daniel Nevins and Avram Reisner, reversed those positions while upholding the biblical prohibition on male intercourse. Both papers earned 13 votes, a majority of the 25-member committee.
So were these voted on in order and the second repealed the first? Thehy look mutually exclusive to me.
but this semes to say it:
> Rabbi Menachem Creditor, a leading advocate for change within the movement, said Eisen’s use of the committee debate as an opportunity for discussion at JTS is a step in the right direction.
> “That’s a revolution,” Creditor said. “It might be quiet, but I think it’s going to change things on the ground because rabbis can’t ignore the inclusion of whichever teshuvot will be accepted. We can’t ignore it. There’s no hiding it. It’s transparent.”
So it seems that either one or the other will be accepted? I am lost.
Third, it seems some toys left a perambulator:
> Roth and Levy, along with Rabbis Mayer Rabinowitz and Joseph Prouser, resigned from the law committee to protest its endorsement of the liberal Dorff paper.
Good riddance, especially to Joel Roth, whose views surely ought to have been disqualified anyway after the same sex scandal that caused him to resign as Dean of the JTS. No smoke without fire there
Why is this important to me as a non Jew?
Because Judaism is a global religion, although this is but one "form". And because this is one more bastion to fall, or at least to have its walls breached. It will be interesting to see a synagogue blessing a gay union in a naton that does not "allow" such unions. That is why it is important, and a global issue
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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If a teshuvot is accepted with sufficient votes then rabbis may follow it. The votes does not mandate them to do so, it allows them to do so.
So mutually exclusive teshuvots may be accepted at even the same meeting and be valid.
In which case, what a set of jerks to resign because the second teshuvot was accepted. It seems Joel Roth and his little friends are into foot stamping. Such queenly behaviour!
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I guess you are all bored with this. But it is truly significant. Changes like this are rare. Not unprecedented, but rare. The amount of work behind the scenes, none of whih=ch I have been involved in, has been huge.
The writing of learned papers such as "Dear David" (have any of you read "Dear David? Google it, if not; it's long and is relevant to christians as well, since the christian heritage is built upon the jewish heritage) and their being accepted takes a long time. We're talking of ageed bearded clerics set in their ways here, not a bunch of forward looking young guys.
The stress as this went to committee only to be deferred again and again, followed by watching Joel Roth and his henchmen doing a tour of the USA warning people that a gay revolution was coming unless they prevented it (and trust me, I do know the unverifiable circumstances of Roth's resignation, the Luke Ford site that speculated on the gender was close enough to the unverifiable version was near enough). Maybe casual sex was his idea rather than commitment, but at least he can now be a rabbi with approval of the Law Committee, "even if he is gay".
The amusement of watching the opponents of gay ordination and gay marriages resign because the other side won! That is priceless. Consign them to the pit and never let Joel ROth or his kind seek to lead people again. He has proved that he has badly flawed judgement by his actions in 1993 and his actions in 2006. Wikipedia says: "On December 6th, 2006, Roth resigned from the law committee after the acceptance of a paper by Rabbis Elliot Dorff, Daniel Nevins and Avram Reisner on homosexual marriage and ordination of homosexual rabbis, while it upheld the biblical prohibition on male intercourse." and refers to an article: http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=17355&intcategoryid=4
This may seem like small beer, but it is like getting Soutern Baptists to admit that homosexuality is not a sin but is part of human nature and variety.
Why am I banging this drum? Very simply because at least one of those who worked so hard on this is interested in your reactions, your thoughts. I'm not jewish, yet it matters to me. It matters as much as Gay Liberation mattered in the 60s and 70s.
Remember, Judaism is global. And Conservative Judaism is all across the USA. So we have clergy who will bless gay marriages in a nation where gay marriage is not allowed!
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Or is it only pushed to the ground?
Just the meer referance of battles and wars to be won makes this entire scenerio distastful.
It is not a war. It is an educational process.
Perhaps it is nothing more than the language used to describe it but it is after all the language that projects the tension.
Is this movement a good thing?
Who knows.... maybe yes, maybe not as much as people wish.
Only time will tell....
You make referance to Southern Baptists....... Hell they still think Jews have horns under their hats.... Do you think them making a move one step away from what SB's preach will help convince the SB convention that they are wrong?
A snowball in hell has a better chance....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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It was never a war. Or rather, the education process was never a war.
Battles were fought against the ordination of gay rabbis, and against blessing of gay unions. Education and a campaign of non demonisation was from the pro gat side
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I meant that to be longer, but the phone rang.
The whole process has been scholarly dispute, argument and counter argument. There has been discussion of what a man may or may not do with another man and remain within the Leviticus guidance. There has been lobbying.
Web sites have appeared - http://keshetrabbis.org is perhaps one of the most significant because it shows the large number of rabbis who are wholly pro homosexual inclusion.
A strong lobby has formed on both sides of the debate, and each put its points vigorously.
And yet, despite "also winning" in that their own paper was accepted, several anti-homosexual rabbis decided they "lost" and resigned from the very committee that accepted their own paper, and did so because the committee also accepted a diametrically opposed paper form the pro-homosexual lobby.
That makes it look like a battle, I fear. But it was not a battle. It was a titanic struggle, and the education process has been huge. Congregations have been made aware of the forthcoming discussions well in advance and their rabbis have led them alomng whichever paths they believed were right.
Now there is at last "legal freedom" to act. Gay rabbis may be out and ordained. The Rabbinical Assembly is now considering whether to employ out gay staff. Gay marriages may be blessed.
And some see it as a war, which you point out rightly that it is not. It was not even a war when the Gay Liberation Front worked so hard in the late 1960s. The only war was the Stonewall Riot.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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