Skip to main content

Statement of Principles: Gay Jews in the Orthodox World

A statement was released last week – on a weird, anonymous blog, not under the auspices of any official organization – which covers many points applicable to gay Jews living in the frum world.  The statement is here, and they’re looking for frum rabbis or mental health professionals to vet the thing and add their names to the list of signatories.

On some fronts, it’s helpful; in other ways, it may be seen as simply frustrating or a reiteration of stuff people already knew, in the same way the Vatican keeps coming out and forbidden birth control.  I’m sure there are many folks who are dying to hear something new from the frum establishment.

There are 12 points, but for me, these are the main ones.

  1. Be nice.  Treat everybody in a friendly, dignified way.  Actually, you could distill the whole thing down to this one principle, except we’re Jews, and we love specifics.
  2. It’s not our place to ask what goes on in the privacy of anyone’s bedroom.
  3. Theories of the origin of homosexuality are not really relevant to halacha.  Sad, maybe.  Frustrating, maybe.  But true.
  4. Regardless of the origin, attempting to change someone’s sexual orientation can be dangerous.
  5. There are gay people & their kids among us – be nice (see #1) and understand that living a frum life places them at risk.  Sad, frustrating, true.
  6. Gay marriage can’t happen halachically.  But you knew it would say that, right?

Here’s my favourite line:  “All Jews are challenged to fulfill mitzvot to the best of their ability, and the attitude of “all or nothing” was not the traditional approach adopted by the majority of halakhic thinkers and poskim throughout the ages.”

Here’s another link to the document.  I admire its honesty and forthright approach.

What part of this document speaks to you?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad.  She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel.  She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.”  I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community.  Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos.  Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach .  Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused on kids, including a