Same Sex Marriage and Orthodox Jews
This morning my boss emailed me an article by Jim Hightower about same-sex marriage, in which he voiced the usual criticism of how right-wing Xians seem to take the Bible literally when it suits them. I.e., they get all fired up about the (seemingly) anti-gay verse in Leviticus 18, but they eat shrimp and have no qualms about sowing a field with two kinds of crop. In other words, it was the usual liberal Xian argument in which the Levitical prohibitions are presented as absurd. To show you where my head is at lately, my immediate thought was, Where does that leave Jews?
I realize this puts me a little (ok, a lot) behind the curve, but last week BB and I finally got around to watching Trembling Before G-d, the documentary about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews. BB and I have been reading the weekly Torah portion together for several months now, and coincidentally, this morning before going to work I was saying to her how difficult life must be for people, like those in the movie, who believe the Torah really is the Word of God. If you believe, as I do not, that The One and Only God dictated the entire Torah to Moshe from atop Mt. Sinai, that's all the reason you need to obey every last commandment (all 613 of them, baby). God said it, so you need to do it. It doesn't matter whether or not it makes sense to you, because God knows more than you do and our job is to be a nation of priests, meaning a nation of people who do whatever God wants, no matter how weird it may sound. It doesn't matter whether something appears right/wrong to you, either intuitively or through logic -- the Word of God trumps everything.
I see the appeal of this. On the one hand, it must be comforting to have a book that tells you what to do in every possible situation. Also comforting to know for certain whether your actions are right or wrong. I also recognize, on an intellectual level, the problem with liberal theology, which so often goes in the direction of "if it sounds right, it must be what God wants." BUT -- what if part of the essence of your being is something that the Word of God says is not OK? What do you do?
Gay Orthodox Jews seem to go for one of a short list of options:
1. Decide it's a bunch of b.s., and stop being observant.
2. Figure hey, there are 613 commandments, and if I keep the other 612 to the best of my ability God will probably let me off the hook on this one. The problem with this is that my parents (rabbi, neighbors, etc.) beg to differ, and now no one wants to marry my sister because the whole family is contaminated.
2a. Besides, I'm a lesbian, and it doesn't say anything about us in here.
3. Very popular option: try reparative therapy, get married, and be a miserable closet case.
4. Rather unpopular option (more popular among liberal Jews): Leviticus 18 doesn't mean me. It's about temple prostitutes or something. The sin of Sodom was being rude to guests. Or (works for some frum men): Leviticus 18 is just about anal sex, and everything else is a-ok.
4a. Besides, I'm a lesbian, etc.
All of these options kind of suck.
Going back to Jim Hightower's analysis for a second, I should note that according to Jews, none of Leviticus 18 applies to the goyim anyway. Those 613 commandments I mentioned? Only Jews are lucky enough to have to obey those. The rest of the planet only has to deal with seven. And you know what? Laying off anal isn't one of them.
P.S. Well actually, one of the seven says something about "sexual immorality," but that's awfully non-specific, if you ask me. I thought it was about adultery. I'm sure people are lining up to color me wrong on that one.