printed a Declaration, signed by 100 Orthodox rabbis (an my understanding is that more have now signed it) declaring emphatically that this action has nothing to do with Orthodoxy and an offense to Orthodox principles and values. See http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/12/05/100-orthodox-rabbis-issue-same-sex-marriage-declaration/I am proud to say that I am one of the rabbis who signed this document.
However, that is not the end of the story. This week, I received a phone call from a reporter at the Forward informing me that they went through this list of rabbis and also the list of those who signed the "Statement of Principles on the Place of Jews with a Homosexual Orientation in
Our Community" (see http://statementofprinciplesnya.blogspot.com/) and they found only one rabbi on both lists -- yours truly. They wanted to know why I signed both lists and also why there were no other rabbis who overlapped.As followers of the blog know, I expressed some regret in signing the Statement but specifically because of the way it was, I believe, misinterpreted. See http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/2010/08/u.html and http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/2010/08/media-misinterprets-meaning-of.html. In essence, though, I agreed with basic substance of the Statement as I did with the Declaration -- and so had no difficulties responding to this reporter's questions. The answer was really very simple, and the reporter understood this -- there was no contradiction between the Statement and the Declaration. To read further about this. I invite you to read the Forward article at http://www.forward.com/articles/147684/
Rabbi Ben Hecht
1 comment:
The original declaration was never about acknowledging that homosexuals have to be treated with the respect and dignity due all human beings (except socialist, communists and Habs fans). It was about getting a foot in the door and then using the declaration as a basis for insisting that there was "rabbinical support" for voiding a verse in the Torah.
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