Short Thoughts: Prop 8, The Orthodox Statement on Gays, and Cordoba House

I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like, so I thought I'd throw out some quick thoughts on various current events:

Prop 8 Ruled Unconstitutional

Congratulations to California gays and lesbians, their children, and all who care about them! Congratulations to America for taking another step in the right direction. I wish this issue were over and done so millions of people could move on with their lives, but it's great to watch America continue to overcome the small-mindedness of social conservatives.

Statement of Principles

Some of the Jblogs and various news outlets are praising the Orthodox rabbis who signed a Statement of Principles on the Place of Jews with a Homosexual Orientation in Our Community for preaching a message of tolerance and inclusion and patting themselves on the back for being tolerant Orthodox Jews. While I agree it would be far better if Orthodox people followed these principles rather than continuing to shun, mock, and abuse gay people, I don't think you can be genuinely tolerant as long as you support Orthodox Judaism.

What good is it to preach tolerance when you maintain that God himself wrote that men who have sex with men should be killed? When you stand against not only gay sex, but gay marriage and even commitment ceremonies?

It's not enough to send mixed signals. You can't convince your gay son that you fully love and accept him if you also tell him he can never marry or even have sex. You can't convince the bullies that they should stop bullying gay teens into mental illness and suicide when you also teach that God thinks gay sex is an abomination worthy of death. You can't teach your children that gays and lesbians are people to be loved and accepted and also that halakha is a good thing. It just doesn't compute, not at a gut level, no matter how clever your apologetics are.

Looking down the list of signatories, I recognize some of the most liberal Orthodox rabbis in America, people whose natural inclination would be -- if they were not Orthodox -- to recognize and accept gays and lesbians as equals and embrace gay marriage as wholeheartedly as they do straight marriage. But they are Orthodox. And so we get half-measures and mixed signals.

If you're genuinely for tolerance, you cannot continue to support the tenets of Orthodox Judaism. The two are mutually exclusive. Still, something is better than nothing, and I commend the rabbis for going as far as they have to reduce harm. I hope it helps.

Cordoba House

Various Republicans including most famously Sarah Palin but also lesser luminaries like Rudoph Giuliani and demi-Republican Joe Lieberman have been ranting and raving about plans for a Muslim cultural center to be built several blocks from Ground Zero on the grounds that Muslims perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and therefore it's insensitive to allow the center to be built nearby. Or something.

They disgust me. They do not get what makes America great. They're small-minded and hateful and eager to exploit the average American's fear for political gain. They think the difference between America and (e.g.) Afghanistan is that we are (Judeo-) Christian and they are Muslim. It's not. There were Christian countries for centuries that engaged in slaughters much larger than 9/11. What makes America great is not that so many citizens are Christian or Jewish but that in spite of that religiosity, we are a pluralistic and tolerant country.

I have no illusions about Islam. Traditional Islam is without a doubt worse than Orthodox Judaism or any of today's mainstream Christian denominations. Worse for women, worse for gays, worse for nonbelievers, worse for intellectuals, worse even for the pious -- pretty much worse in every way. But it doesn't have to stay that way.

Ancient Judaism was much like modern Islam -- just open the Torah and you'll find exhortations to execute gay people and those who don't keep the Sabbath, condoning of child marriage and slavery and treating women as property -- pretty much everything we rightly revile Islam for today. And yet Judaism changed. The largest denomination of Judaism today allows for and encourages total equality between the sexes, full rights and tolerance for homosexuality, and total engagement with secular scholarship. Even the Orthodox holdouts have long since jettisoned the implementation of most of the Torah's horrible rules and mostly restrict their bigotry to words and social ostracization.

Christianity for centuries engaged in the kind of mass slaughter and forced conversion that the pathetic al-Qaeda could only dream of, and even they reformed. (I'm not speaking of Luther's Reformation -- Luther was probably as bigoted a man as ever existed -- but rather the reformation that occurred as Christians absorbed the secular ideas of modern humanism and modern science. The Catholic Church today can't even convince a majority of American Catholics to oppose legal abortion.)

The Cordoba House, rather than helping the likes of al-Qaeda, is instead part of the solution to al-Qaeda. We can't beat radical Islam by killing people. Every radical we kill has children and siblings and cousins and friends who now hate us more than they did before, if they did hate us before. Every civilian we kill or maim has loved ones who hate us perhaps even more passionately.

But every Muslim we welcome and influence for the better just by our example (not by Palin's or Lieberman's but by everyday Americans') takes a piece of Islam away from the fanatics and turns Islam into a less dangerous ideology. It demonstrates that modernity and Islam can coexist and that you don't have to hate America to be a good Muslim.

But that's not even the point. The point is, this is America. We're supposed to stand for freedom, regardless of religion or ideology. Palin, Giuliani, and Lieberman are a disgrace to the country they so ostentatiously claim to love.

The Bind of Orthodoxy: Tolerance and Toevah*

On Tuesday, four gay Orthodox men spoke at Yeshiva University, sharing their stories and answering questions. (Unofficial transcript, with names changed.)

That this event took place is a step in the right direction, of course. Some elements within modern Orthodoxy are pushing hard to spread a message of tolerance and sensitivity. I commend them for that. But they've already stretched the limits of Orthodoxy to the breaking point. They can go no further, and it's not clear that they can sustain the expansion of tolerance that they have achieved.

This is a letter signed by 5-7 (versions vary) roshei yeshiva**:

The Torah requires that we relate with sensitivity to a discreet individual who feels that he/she has a homosexual orientation, but abstains from any and all homosexual activity. Such sensitivity, however, cannot be allowed to erode the Torah’s unequivocal condemnation of homosexual activity. The Torah’s mitzvos and judgments are eternally true and binding. Homosexual activity constitutes an abomination. As such, publicizing or seeking legitimization even for the homosexual orientation one feels runs contrary to Torah. In any forum or on any occasion when appropriate sympathy for such discreet individuals is being discussed, these basic truths regarding homosexual feelings and activity must be emphatically re-affirmed.

And this is a message from the president and principal of RIETS, the rabbinical seminary of YU:

In light of recent events, we want to reiterate the absolute prohibition of homosexual relationships according to Jewish law. Of course, as was indicated in a message issued by our Roshei Yeshiva, those struggling with this issue require due sensitivity, although such sensitivity cannot be allowed to erode the Torah's unequivocal condemnation of such activity. Sadly, as we have discovered, public gatherings addressing these issues, even when well-intentioned, could send the wrong message and obscure the Torah's requirements of halakhic behavior and due modesty. Yeshiva has an obligation to ensure that its activities and events promote the primacy and sacredness of Torah in our lives and communities. We are committed to providing halakhic guidance and sensitivity with respect to all challenges confronted by individuals within our broader community, including homosexual inclinations, in a discreet, dignified and appropriate fashion.

We must be sensitive, but homosexuality is an abomination. We regret that Orthodox Judaism's rules and stigmas against homosexuality cause untold suffering and sometimes suicide, but we must be terribly careful not to send the message (chas v'shalom!) that homosexual behavior is okay. It's *more* important to avoid sending that message than it is to promote understanding and sensitivity.

The Torah says that (male) homosexuality is an abomination, and that those who engage in homosexual behavior deserve to be killed. Orthodox Judaism says that the Torah is true and is the foundation for all that is good. This cannot ultimately be reconciled with what every decent person living in a modern society in the 21st century knows to be true: that love is love.

The Torah is the problem, and as long as Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah is the word of God, Orthodox Judaism is the problem. If you are an Orthodox Jew, *you* are part of the problem.

People wrote the Torah. That this is controversial to anybody at this point is frankly insane. There's no magical sky god that dictated this scroll to a great man named Moses at the top of a mountain for 40 days and 40 nights thousands of years ago. Are you all children? This is a story for children, or perhaps primitive illiterates like the ones who were the original audience for this story.

That was then and this is now, and you need to step up and start being honest with yourselves and each other. You can't be tolerant or sensitive as long as you believe that the Creator of the Universe thinks that homosexuality is an abomination and you willingly worship him.





*Toevah: abomination.
**Roshei yeshiva: heads of religious instruction.

Conditional Love And Orthodox Judaism: A Little Mussar From A Jewish Atheist

There were a lot of conditions for love and affection and continued membership, And they were serious, and they were ludicrous. It was, "You don't wear a yarmulke you can get out. You intermarry, we sit shiva for you. You eat non-kosher and our children are not allowed to hang out with you." --Shalom Auslander

When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do as I Say’

The studies found that both positive and negative conditional parenting were harmful, but in slightly different ways. The positive kind sometimes succeeded in getting children to work harder on academic tasks, but at the cost of unhealthy feelings of “internal compulsion.” Negative conditional parenting didn’t even work in the short run; it just increased the teenagers’ negative feelings about their parents.

What these and other studies tell us, if we’re able to hear the news, is that praising children for doing something right isn’t a meaningful alternative to pulling back or punishing when they do something wrong. Both are examples of conditional parenting, and both are counterproductive.

The child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, who readily acknowledged that the version of negative conditional parenting known as time-out can cause “deep feelings of anxiety,” nevertheless endorsed it for that very reason. “When our words are not enough,” he said, “the threat of the withdrawal of our love and affection is the only sound method to impress on him that he had better conform to our request.”

But the data suggest that love withdrawal isn’t particularly effective at getting compliance, much less at promoting moral development. Even if we did succeed in making children obey us, though — say, by using positive reinforcement — is obedience worth the possible long-term psychological harm? Should parental love be used as a tool for controlling children?

Deeper issues also underlie a different sort of criticism. Albert Bandura, the father of the branch of psychology known as social learning theory, declared that unconditional love “would make children directionless and quite unlovable” — an assertion entirely unsupported by empirical studies. The idea that children accepted for who they are would lack direction or appeal is most informative for what it tells us about the dark view of human nature held by those who issue such warnings.

In practice, according to an impressive collection of data by Dr. Deci and others, unconditional acceptance by parents as well as teachers should be accompanied by “autonomy support”: explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view.

The last of these features is important with respect to unconditional parenting itself. Most of us would protest that of course we love our children without any strings attached. But what counts is how things look from the perspective of the children — whether they feel just as loved when they mess up or fall short.

Rogers didn’t say so, but I’ll bet he would have been glad to see less demand for skillful therapists if that meant more people were growing into adulthood having already felt unconditionally accepted.

That article sent a pang through my heart, because I recognized so much of my parents' disciplinary style in the "what not to do" sections.

Just last week, I kind of casually mentioned to my mother-in-law that I'm something of a disappointment to my father (in that I'm not Orthodox.) She was, of course, horrified and insisted that it must not be true. And maybe it isn't, but this article sure explains why I would feel that way. My parents probably have always loved me unconditionally, but it felt to me that their love and affection were contingent on my behaving in certain ways... and I either could not or would not always behave in those ways.

I think that that kind of parenting goes hand-in-hand with fundamentalist religion (although it appears everywhere.) The Orthodox community itself is the same way. They are so warm and accepting as long as you Do As They Say. Be (or appear to be) a mainstream Orthodox person and you can have dozens of friends two weeks after moving into a community. But if you don't fit the mold, you don't fit the community, and they get rid of you, if only by not making you feel welcome.

Yes, Modern Orthodox communities will tolerate a blue shirt, some mixed dancing, and even eating non-kosher dairy out, but the entire community is built around the set of behaviors that is Orthodox Judaism. If a kid becomes an atheist or is openly gay or even just becomes a Reform Jew, he (generally speaking) no longer has a place in that community.

It's important to note that no harm is intended by Orthodox communities, just as no harm is intended by parents trying to teach their children to behave themselves. But harm is caused. Gay kids, atheist kids, apatheist kids, weird kids, outspoken kids, freethinking kids, boys who don't like gemara, kids who don't want to go to Israel -- they get the message that they aren't loved and don't belong. In more right-wing communities, kids who like secular books and movies, girls who don't want to be housewives or even mothers, girls who want to go to college, boys who wear blue shirts -- they get that message too.

I remember when I first told my parents that I didn't believe anymore and wasn't going to remain Orthodox, I asked them if they'd prefer me to be happy or to stay Orthodox. They refused to answer, arguing it was a false dichotomy (and probably it was.) But it gets at an important issue. There is so much focus in Orthodox families and Orthodox communities in making sure that children turn into this one kind of adult that it does a lot of damage. I genuinely did not (and do not) know how my parents would answer that question honestly, assuming they had to pick. A happy son or an Orthodox one?

And don't you liberal Orthodoxers pat yourselves on the back if you allow a little more leeway, say a blue shirt or a secular school. If you make it seem like your love is in any way contingent on your kids (or brothers or sisters or friends) remaining Orthodox or straight or marrying another Jew, you are part of the problem. Love (or the perception of love) should not be used in that way.

This is NOT to say that you can't argue for someone to marry a Jew or remain Orthodox or try to become straight (even though I'd disagree with those arguments.) It's about letting your loved ones believe that your love is contingent on their behaviors and life choices.

There are some Orthodox people who get this right, even when "tested" by gay or OTD or whatever kids. I don't want to make it sound like I think every Orthodox person is guilty of this. There are probably even some Orthodox communities who get it right, probably in very small communities where they don't have enough people who are the same to cast out those who are different.

But this is a problem that's built into the very notion of "Orthodox community." "Orthodox" should refer to an individual's beliefs or behaviors, not to a community. It's fine and natural for Orthodox people to associate with each other and to form communities, but it is not fine (although it is natural) for them to exclude non-Orthodox people from those communities. And it's not enough to welcome non-Orthodox people for meals or events with the intention of bringing them closer to Orthodoxy. If you don't value people as people regardless of their choices, then you do not love them. And I don't think even the Torah commands you to love only your Orthodox neighbors.

Oh, and perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, you might be able to make a serious dent in your OTD "problem" by not using your love as reward and punishment. There are plenty of potential OTDers who probably wouldn't care enough to leave if they weren't made to feel so unwelcome.

(HT: Abandoning Eden)

Mitt Romney and Atheists

One of the few positive things I've said about Bush is that he consistently includes "people of no faith" when he's speaking about religious diversity in America. I honestly appreciate that.

From his speech on Mormonism the other day, it appears that Mitt Romney would not do the same if he were elected.

Washington Post Editorial:

No Freedom Without Religion?
There's a gap in Mitt Romney's admirable call for tolerance.

Friday, December 7, 2007; Page A38

RELIGIOUS liberty is, as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared yesterday, "fundamental to America's greatness." With religious division inciting violence across the globe, he is right to celebrate America's tradition of religious tolerance. He's right, too, that no one should vote against him, or for him, because he is a Mormon. We only wish his empathy for religious minorities such as his own extended a bit further, to those who do not believe in God.

It is regrettable that 47 years after John F. Kennedy felt the need to promise voters that his Catholic faith would not dictate his conduct as president, Mr. Romney felt compelled to offer similar assurances that "no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions." It's regrettable, too, that the skepticism and even hostility some voters feel toward Mormonism has been played upon by the man who has emerged as his chief rival in Iowa, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who is running commercials that proclaim him to be a "Christian leader." That is why Mr. Romney felt the need to detail his creed: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind." If, as Mr. Romney correctly says, the country's founders took care not to impose a religious test for any public office, a candidate's belief, or not, in the divinity of Christ ought to be irrelevant.

Where Mr. Romney most fell short, though, was in his failure to recognize that America is composed of citizens not only of different faiths but of no faith at all and that the genius of America is to treat them all with equal dignity. "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom," Mr. Romney said. But societies can be both secular and free. The magnificent cathedrals of Europe may be empty, as Mr. Romney said, but the democracies of Europe are thriving.

"Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government," Mr. Romney said. But not all Americans acknowledge that, and those who do not may be no less committed to the liberty that is the American ideal.

And shame on Huckabee, for his "Christian leader" campaign.

Update: Ezra Klein sums it up brilliantly:

In a speech Romney was forced to give because he feared unfair discrimination, Romney did not stand against intolerance. Instead, he simply asked that it not be directed against him, a man of faith. You can be intolerant, but do it to them, over there. They're even more different.

It's like when black activists oppose gay rights -- all the more infuriating because they of all people should know better.

Jim McGreevey about Larry Craig

Former Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey, who was forced to admit to having a homosexual affair with a subordinate and later resign, has an interesting opinion piece in the Washington Post today, calling for understanding and compassion for the recently disgraced Republican Senator Larry Craig. He also relates his story of growing up gay and ashamed, and his journey to finally coming out and living honestly, post-scandal.

It's also the first time I've seen someone admit that he specifically took anti-gay stances in order to appear more straight:

Despite being a moderately liberal governor, my stance on marriage was: "between a man and a woman." The position, in my mind, created a tension with the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community that affirmed my bona fides as a "straight." Only after the crisis that resulted in my resignation, when public opinion no longer mattered, did I realize the importance and legitimacy of same-sex marriage.

He remains religious but has apparently come to a new understanding:

If being gay is, as I believe, a natural gift of the creator, what choice does a gay person have in being gay? If we condemn sin in an equal manner, so be it. But what if our condemnation tells to members of the next generation that they are to be shamed, repudiated and vilified inequitably for being gay?

I pray that the tide of American history continues to sweep toward the inevitable expansion of freedom that recognizes the worth and dignity of every individual -- and that mine is the last generation that is required to choose between affairs of the heart and elected office.

Amen.

Mother of a Gay Son Responds to Anti-gay Venom

Via the Gay-ex-Choosid, a letter from a woman in Vermont:

I've had enough of your anti-gay venom

Vermont debate brings out the haters
Sunday, April 30, 2000
By SHARON UNDERWOOD
For the Valley News

As the mother of a gay son, I've seen firsthand how cruel and misguided people can be.

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people.

I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life with no dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

No choice
At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it.

For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will?

If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."

Principles?
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending.

My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart. He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?