Gay Rights

For a long time I've been torn over the debate of LGBT rights. As a student of American law, I realize that there is no constitutional or legal foundation for barring homosexuals from marriage. As a servant of God, I cannot in good conscience support something that is expressly forbidden.
I have finally found terms in which to express my conflict and its resolution, which is to be found in the obvious, yet oft ignored separation of church and state that governs American law.
It is simple, it is honest, and it is simultaneously true to Torah, to law, and to civil equality, as only the straightforward, and unapologetic approach can be; an approach I've seen expressed only once before in this blogpost.


It is obvious to me that LGBT people should be granted the right to civil marriage. Civil marriage is a status that grants people multiple financial benefits. To bar certain people from access to those benefits would be financial discrimination equivalent to barring them from access to mortgage loans or investment in mutual funds.

But that is civil marriage. It is defined by financial and medical benefits. It is a legal agreement for which there is no reason to bar any two people from entering together. It is a civil right.

And it is entirely independent of the institution of religious marriage.
Religious marriage does not bear with it any change in legal status. It does not entitle one to any benefits, legal, financial, or otherwise. It is subject to definition by each religious body that recognizes it, and as such, each religious body is free to establish its own definition. If a religion then maintains as one of its tenants that marriage is a relationship defined exclusively as existing between a woman and a man, then that is not discriminatory; that is an expression of their religious freedom.

It is no less a violation of their rights to ask religious institutions to recognize and perform homosexual marriages than is a denial to homosexuals the right to civil marriage a violation of theirs.

I will speak of my own religion: Judaism.
And when I speak of Judaism I speak only of Judaism as it is determined in the sacred texts and codified laws of our tradition.
The Bible very clearly defines marriage as, "when a man shall take a woman,"- a relationship that exists only between of opposite sex. Sex is defined in our laws according only to anatomical indicators. It is not defined according to identity, or any means of self-expression. A man is a human male, and a woman is a human female. It is further determined in our code of law that even if the ceremony of marriage is performed between two men it does not result in the creation of a religious marriage.

The Bible also states that sexual intercourse between two men is forbidden. Furthermore, that it is punishable by death.
It is worth mention that the same between two women is neither punishable nor prohibited. This is the greatest indicator that our laws are not determined by the whims or antiquated norms of the times and cultures in which they were recorded. Over the course of two thousand years of history, across the globe, in every language and in every society, our religious authorities have consistently said that if they could prohibit this they would. They condemn it, they revile at it in the most loathsome of terms, but they do not ban it, because there is no textual justification to do so.
To me this proves that our laws are indeed subject to rigorous legal method, not subjective bigotry, as would be obvious to anyone who lent them even cursory study.

So Judaism very clearly and unequivocally rejects homosexual marriage, and finds abhorrent any homosexual act, but does not express any opinion regarding the homosexual orientation itself or the people who feel it.
And I would ask of Jews to please recognize that if you choose to deny this, you do not accept the LGBT community into Judaism, you only alienate yourself from it.

So I do indeed support LGBT rights. I cannot understand how anyone could deny them any civil right that should be granted equally to all citizens of a democratic and pluralistic nation.
But I also support religious freedom, inclusive in which is the right to reserve the institution of marriage to those couples who fall within the definitions set by their religious tenants.

Consensual Rape?

I recently read this article, in which a female college student describes a sexual experience, and explains the need to address situations that do not fall into the category of rape, but are still not consensual. It contains the following excerpt:
"I certainly didn’t feel like I’d been raped. But what had happened the night prior was not consensual sex, and I didn’t like it. I wanted the flirting. I wanted the kissing. I wanted the sleepover. But I didn’t want to go all the way. And that’s very hard to explain to a man who is just as drunk as you are."

I feel like I'm reading this:
"I wanted to jump off the cliff. I wanted to feel the air rush past my face. But I didn't want to hit the ground at the bottom."

All circumstances have natural consequences.
If you don't want the consequence, don't place yourself in the circumstance.

You didn't want to have sex?
You shouldn't have gotten into his bed.
You were drunk?
You shouldn't have drank.
He was drunk too?
His responsibility to remain sober does not mitigate yours.

I'm not saying we should blame the victim. Obviously, when one is in a vulnerable situation, predators are always at fault for taking advantage of them. But that doesn't mean that you should repeatedly throw yourself head-long into vulnerable situations. You are responsible for placing yourself there. There are times when vulnerability is forced, but it is often in part or in whole voluntary.
For that, the victim is not blameworthy, but certainly liable.

What's really ironic about this article is that she does not consider herself to be a victim, and she doesn't feel wronged. She admits that she willingly participated in something she didn't want to do, yet by the end of the article she never assumes responsibility for the occurrence. She speaks with the same rape prevention rhetoric of building awareness to create change so that this will stop happening to women. She deftly dodges even a hint of responsibility for an action she admits she did with agency.

There are two elements of judgement we face. There is din, our guilt for active transgression, and there is heshbon, our liability for passively averting merit.
This is definitely a case of heshbon.

Another problem she ignores is that her entire paradigm of sexual interaction sets her up for this. Her sexual ethic is described in two sentences:
"It shouldn’t have been a big deal–it’s just sex–so I didn’t want to make it one."
"Sometimes you have to have lunch with girls you don’t want to have lunch with, and sometimes you have to have sex with boys you don’t want to have sex with. "
If you think having sex with someone is as casual and polite a social interaction as having lunch, then it's no wonder you will end up being forced by whatever laws of social propriety you have chosen to direct your behaviour into as many unwilling acts of sex as lunch dates. (It also seems likely that if you have sex out of politeness it won't often be very good, which certainly seems to be the case for her male friend.)

But the author again admits that even she does not really accept the casual paradigm of sex that she and her friends have established for themselves. She writes,
"As we cuddled, I realized that what we had done was no different to him than the sex he’d had with anyone else. Overnight, I convinced myself it was no different to me, either."
You don't feel that way after a bad lunch date.
You recognize that a sexual experience has a unique affect on you that no other situation has. Clearly it is different. Clearly it is more personal, more vital, more elemental. 
It ought to be clear that it thus deserves to be treated with greater respect, but somehow the gravity of sex has escaped you, perhaps due to the familiarity that comes with repeated exposure.

Maybe I'm just speaking from the ignorance of virginity, but virginity is a sexual experience too. It's one that I've chosen, because I believe that sex should be conducted in the context of mutual desire and the acknowledgement of exclusivity and commitment. I believe that because I recognize sex to be fundamental to human identity and a compelling factor in nearly all of our social and private interactions, even for us virgins. I believe that because sexual identity is so fundamental, it is something that should be treated with sanctity.

Men have a responsibility toward women to be aware of their vulnerabilities and wishes, and to respond honorably in accordance therein.
Women likewise have a responsibility to not enhance their own vulnerability and then blame the insensitivity and domineering lust of men for their negative experiences.

Din and heshbon. 

The truth about men, is that while they may all be created equal, they don't stay that way.

Some get better.

Some get worse.

Some degrade themselves so deeply that they violate the obligations through which they earn their right to live, and thus lose it.

Unfortunately, these have shown themselves to be not few in number.

Let none with a heart, soul or mind misplace mercy in them.