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

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Well they can't really enforce a prohibition on anal sex, so I don't think that's such a big deal.

[desh]

Good point.

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

WOOT WOOT WOOOT SUPER WOOT WOOT!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you, Conservative Movement, for NO LONGER being the ONLY Jewish sect with both (a) the theological self-authority to do something about the status of gays & lesbians, and (b) the distinction of having done nothing at all.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

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

[(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.

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

that theological self-authority seems to be what they were arguing about and why roth and a few others just quit.
that being said I'm somewhat less of a fan of Roth, strong support of ordaining women non-withstanding, since I found out that he was removed from being dean of JTW for making sexual comments to female students.

[desh]

I don't get Roth's point. Orthodoxy has the self-authority too (albeit in a much less hierarchical way). Orthodox Jews make halachic rulings to change the status of things all the time.

Anyone who thinks that the halachic process is just about further clarifying the exact decisions we've always had is deluding themselves, and I disagree with anyone who thinks it should be that.

[rivka-m.livejournal.com]

yeah, but when you're ortho, it's a lot easier to go stricter than to go more lenient, so that's the direction they tend to change things.

not that that lenient never happens too, just more rarely (like "prozbul" centuries ago). and because it's harder, it tends to happen in areas that won't make waves.

ex: israeli rabbinate declared that plastic CAN be kashered (apparantly that psak had the express purpose of making things easier on the army)

a friend's response: you can kasher plastic and there are still agunot? that's fucked up!"

so true.

[rivka-m.livejournal.com]

yeah, but he could ask his parents