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.