Rabbi vs. Rabbi on Gay Marraige

At the outset of the 20th century, a great debate among rabbis rocked the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel concerning the extension of voting rights to women. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, who established the Chief Rabbinate in prestate Israel, opposed the granting of suffrage to women on the grounds that such a right would alter traditional gender roles and thereby destroy the Jewish family. But Rabbi Ben Zion Meir Hai Ouziel, destined to become the first chief Sephardic rabbi of the state, disagreed, asserting that the “basic human right” of suffrage could not be denied the female gender. His view prevailed.

While I would not suggest that Rabbi Ouziel would apply that logic or that license to the case of Leviticus 18:22, I see no reason why such reasoning and such interpretive freedom cannot be extended to that passage and to the issues of gay and lesbian rights, particularly in light of the Jewish ideals cited here.

Those of us who advocate such positions therefore do so because a principled approach causes us to assert that Jewish tradition requires that full rights and privileges be extended to our lesbian sisters and gay brothers. This is not the claim of people devoted to comfort. It is instead what many of us feel that a Judaism committed to justice and compassion mandates.

At the time when the biblical prohibition regarding homosexuality was written and in subsequent classical rabbinic commentaries on that passage, the rabbis could not imagine a monogamous, procreative same-sex relationship. This is surely part of the rationale behind the condemnation contained in Leviticus.

In our day, when we know such relationships can and do exist, I would argue that this reasoning is no longer convincing and the same ideals the tradition attaches to heterosexual marriage ought to be applied to same-sex relationships. Such extension of the ideal strengthens the family and allows for children to be raised in stable and loving homes where the bonds between partners are permanent and sanctified. In this way, the ideals of the tradition in regard to marriage are promoted by extending full rights — including marriage — to same-sex couples.

Observant Jews must have an attitude of empathy and understanding for individuals who say, “I have these urges, I can’t help them.” But we cannot accept those who would say, “I have these urges, they are God-given and therefore it is a mitzvah to follow them.”

Another complex issue that needs to be addressed is the degree to which this clear Jewish position should be translated into public policy in a pluralistic democratic society. Here, people of good will can debate the merits of whether any religion can urge its values upon the greater society. Here we can disagree, although I personally believe that all religions have the responsibility of educating the public to core values that we believe have universal, as well as particular, religious import. In this connection we ought to consider a Talmudic passage (Chullin 92a) that says that the nations of the world, however sinful, corrupt or perverse, still have the merit of at least three behaviors, one of which is “they do not write a ketubah [marriage contract] for males.”

We can also debate the wisdom of a constitutional amendment defining marriage. It can be argued that any tampering with the U.S. Constitution, a document that arguably has done more for the Jewish people than any other secular document in historical memory, is a risky proposition. However, whatever your position on the constitutional amendment, the inclusion of same-sex relationships in the definition of marriage is something that any Jew of conscience should oppose.