Gay Jews

I'm not gay so I can't directly address your questions...but I have one for you: What the heck has dietary restrictions have to do with this?


However, Jews are just cool.


(Also, a lot of the yiddish you hear have become very NY type sayings -- so there MIGHT not be as many here as you suspect.)

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ok...I guess that makes a little more sense. Thanks for trying.

Back to the OP...LOTS and LOTS of Jews don't keep kosher.

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Totally read it Gay Jaws...

I'm not Jewish but I'm guessing there are many parallels--it's just that Christians get most of the attention in the media. However, it doesn't seem like the Jewish community is nearly as vocal against gays. No Jewish Fred Phelps or Pat Robertsons.

There certainly have been Jewish leaders in NYC who have railed against gays--esp over the marriage equality victory.

The fact is there are gay friendly synagogues just as there are gay friendly churches. There are many who feel that there are other translations and context for Leviticus and Sodom & Gomorrah and that the Old (and New) Testament is not antigay at all. That's hard for a lot of people to believe when they've been told one thing and/or have the belief that the centuries-old, massively translated and adapted book they hold in their hands is infallible.

Funny enough, my first date in NYC was with an openly gay rabbi.

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Despite what you might think of the laws in the Old Testament, Jewish law (halakha) is a fluid and ever-changing tradition and not something rigid.

Halakha has always been based not only on the 613 laws enumerated in the bible (the 613 Mitzvot) but also on the interpretations of those laws in the Talmud and on writings by rabbis over the centuries.

No contemporary Jew follows all 613 Mitzvot, because some of them are laws for things like the proper way to own slaves. Any Jew who claims he or she follows Halakha strictly ends up having some little variations of his or her own.

For instance, one of the 613, which can be found in Deuteronomy 21:18-20, reads: "If someone has a disobedient and defiant son, who does not obey his father or his mother and does not obey them even after they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders of his town in front of his community."

So far so good. A little public humiliation is good for growing children.

"They shall say to the elders of the town: 'Our son is disloyal and defiant. He does not listen to us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.'"

But then, OY!, what mother wants to do what Deuteronomy says, even to her bad, bad boy:

"Then the men of his town shall stone him to death."

As you can imagine, Talmudic scholars over the centuries softened that Mitzvah a little bit.

If you're really interested, I would suggest you visit the website of our gay synagogue in NYC, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, and read the writings of our lesbian rabbi, Sharon Kleinbaum, who is inspirational and has a great sense of humor.

http://cbst.org/

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Updated On: 8/22/11 at 11:36 PM

ppl who are homosexual and religious need to WAKE UP and smell the coffee.

there is a very simple explanation for homosexuality that is completely (and needlessly) obfuscated by religion. we are primates. some primates are homosexual. that's all there is to it.

think about all the needless handwringing that would go away if we accept this simple fact. think of all the childhoods that have been needlessly RUINED because we insist on telling lies to our children about where we come from. we are not divine creatures, we are primates, and that's why some of us are gay.

what's more, we are so lucky to live in a time when we have this information. but instead we would throw away the truffle and munch on the wrapper. it makes all questions like, "why would god make so many homosexuals, only to torture and destroy them?' irrelevant but we keep trying to reconcile the way religion flies in the face of the facts.

we should never forget what the religious did when they were strong, when such questions would earn you a nice little bonfire at your feet. the only reason we can have this discussion is because western civilization has defanged it. the ONLY resistance to more education about homosexuality invariably comes from the religious. only the religious obstruct any attempts to relieve bullying of innocent children who are gay (obviously such children will be bullied if religion was muzzled or not. but tell other children that god hates gay children and see how far they can take it, and have, over and over again). who stands squarely athwart gay marriage? what is the stance of the rabbinical authorities on gay marriage now? no umming or ah'ing to that last question, please.

the LGBT community must WAKE UP. religion is not our friend, and will not be in our lifetime. a few decades from now it will apologize for its appalling behavior towards the homosexual community, which should conclusively demonstrate its MANMADE nature.

Updated On: 8/22/11 at 02:01 AM

I'm pretty anti-religion, but I would never berate anyone for their belief in faith -- at any time. I have long believed that if everything I've been taught about god is true, then all "he" wants is for us to lead good lives and be good to those around us. I don't really believe that "he" cares whether we follow a christian, jewish, muslim or buddhist belief.

I mean no sacrilege when I say, I have always felt closest to god in a theatre. It is where I have always felt the most connected to who I am and where I celebrate life.

For those in the gay community that have found ways to have their faith work for them...well, Mazel Tov.

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"the kind that have payots, and live in apartment buildings with elevators that stop at every floor so they don't have to push a button and "work" on the Sabbath, that have their wives wear wigs and thick black stockings and pop out so many kids they need triple strollers-"

just wow. and fyi- it's "peyos"

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I honestly would rather see religion be reformed, which will undoubtedly come to pass in time. I don't see the issue with that happening. Religion is not going anywhere, ever. It has been a part of human civilization since the get-go.

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Bethnor, you're assuming then that everyone of the Christian and/or Jewish faith is a biblical literalist, which is inarguably not true.

this argument comes up all the time as well, too. if the passage of leviticus is not to be taken literally, than how is it to be taken? metaphorically? what is it a metaphor for? homosexuality is just metaphorically an abomination, is that right? nonsense. these texts MEAN what they SAY, and what they SAY is that homosexuality is an abomination.

why the extraordinary strain to try and make it come out right, when the answer is plain? why do you want to try and reconcile these ancient screeds with modern sensibilities when we have access to a better explanation: these texts are an obvious manmade falsification and needlessly distort the simple TRUTH: we are primates, and you sometimes see homosexuality in primates. and you seem to be making the same point that jacob is making: the more ppl leave behind these ancient texts, the more humane they are! again, this seems to be a point AGAINST religion, not for it! and despite your claim that the "literalists," are small in number, the options for the 2012 election in modern western civilization are "ban gay marriage and force homosexuals to live as second class citizens vs. maybe we'll do something for the LGBT community only after the majority of americans are amenable."

Updated On: 8/22/11 at 12:49 PM

I would recommend that you (and everyone, for that matter) watch the excellent documentary FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO, which completely debunks the myth of biblical literalism to which you are clinging in order to make your point seem more valid than it actually is.

you are only making my case for me. turns out i HAVE seen it, and all i see is a long documentary of more lives that have been ruined and destroyed by these lies we tell ourselves.

i see a mother who was compelled by her religion to reject her daughter and now only regrets it after her child is dead and gone, when what her daughter needed, as she clearly stated in letter after letter after letter, was her mother's unconditional love. and this isn't the only time. see what it makes us do.

look at cnn, and you can read about how strong the parental instinct naturally is: the parents soldiers who have confessed and are guilty of murdering and raping innocent civilians will still defend their children to the last. he may have murdered, but he's my son, and i know he's a good person, the military changed him. religion does the opposite: if you're an innocent child who turns out to be gay, it drives parents to say, "you're a faggot? GET OUT!" listen to dan savage relate how one of his friends was punched in the face by his father when he came out and dare to tell me there aren't hundreds of such stories going on right now as we speak.

i see a poor pastor who is trying to reconcile his homosexuality with his religion, and confused by it, has turned to alcohol. he cannot reconcile it because they cannot be reconciled that way.

then there's a african-american lesbian pastor, whose father admits that he still thinks it's disgusting, but he wants her to be happy. how about this: he forgets all that religious crap altogether, and love his daughter unconditionally, without having this voice in his head telling him she's a disgusting abomination?

and the documentary plainly shows how you see homosexuality EVERYWHERE in nature, making it PLAIN AS DAY that the truth is out there for us to grasp that makes all this argument go away, but we won't do it.

how is any of this meant to disprove my point?

Updated On: 8/22/11 at 01:07 PM

Bethnor, many modern Christians have taken theology classes and understand that the bible has been translated and changed by more hands than one can count. Some take the whole thing with a grain of salt. Spirituality is about faith. Many choose to follow biblical teachings, but many others realize that corruption and centuries have changed or edited whatever truth might have been there.

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