Teh Gayz are taking over the synagogues now too

[desh]

Homosexuals are in.

A follow up to my last post: Three of the 5 papers on the table passed with at least 6 votes, one of which was on the pro-ordination side. This means that Conservative seminaries are now permitted to admit gays and lesbians to their rabbinical and cantorial programs. Starting immediately, UJ will. JTS may follow suit.

Interestingly, all of the 3 papers that passed still forbid anal sex.

(h/t The 'school)

Update 6:46pm EST The Jewish Telegraphic Agency posted a longer article.

Comments

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

Any idea where I can read the various teshuvot?

[desh]

Nope. They may or may not be released eventually (one hopes that at least the ones that passed get released), but they never are prior to a vote. The Conservative movement, and the CJLS in particular, have major transparency problems, especially in comparison to Orthodox Judaism, which is rather open source.

Even if they don't get released, I'm sure there'll be detailed summaries of them out eventually.

[(Anonymous)]

i heard they started publishing their tshuvot, but their years behind and playing catch-up, and ridiculously expensively bound.
DOn't see why they can't put hire someone to put their stuff online the way masorti does.

[desh]

One thing I do know is that the one "pro" teshuva that passed was Dorff's. That one holds that male-male (I think that restriction is in there) anal sex is forbidden, but other forms of "noncoercive, monogamous homosexual sex" are permitted. (In other words, it interprets Leviticus 18:22 as literal and binding, but as narrowly as possible while still keeping the pshat meaning.)

I'm assuming that the logic that follows from that is along the lines of, "Unless you're prepared to ask people on applications whether they engage in gay anal sex, there's no way to refuse a homosexual from admission on grounds of willful halacha violation."

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

thanks makes sense, I'll keep reading stuff

[zeza3.livejournal.com]

What about male/female or female/female anal sex?

Am I the only one who this this entire discussion is a bit . . . invasive?

[desh]

What about male/female or female/female anal sex?

As far as I can tell, Dorff would say that the Leviticus verse doesn't address these. I guess that means that they're okay?

Am I the only one who this this entire discussion is a bit . . . invasive?

Nope. Though I think it's more funny than invasive. To quote Rabbi Jill Jacobs, "One of the most amusing side effects of this whole debate is seeing every Jewish paper in the country have to print the words 'anal sex' over & over."

Though really, your point is another good argument against the anti-gay side of this issue. These teshuvot were about public things, ceremonies and institutions. They weren't designed to directly address the permissibility of bedroom acts (though some of them did address that to make their points). So to me, the fact that you'd have to get this invasive in order to deny people admission to seminaries on these grounds means that they're pretty bad grounds to begin with.

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

Well it's only as invasive as the rest of Jewish sexual halacha.

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

i believe ha-rav avraham yisrael reisner co-authored the dorff teshuva, so maybe noam knows something about tracking down a copy?

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

noam doesn't really keep track of this stuff.

[rivka-m.livejournal.com]

yeah, but he could ask his parents