By Gary Konecky
In the United States, we have two forms of marriage.
The first is civil marriage. Civil marriage is a legal contract between the people getting married and it is governed by the laws of the various jurisdictions that make-up the United States. This is the reason that even if you are being married in a house of worship you must first get a marriage license. This is also the reason that in the unfortunate event of divorce (regardless of your religion) you must go to court to be issued a divorce decree.
The second is religious marriage, which is governed by the laws, rules, and traditions of the various faiths. As the Untied States has a separation of church and state, the government allows clergy of all faith traditions to marry people. When a member of the clergy performs a wedding, that couple is wedded in the religious sense and the legal sense.
If a couple decides they want to be civilly married legally only, they have the option of a marriage at city hall or before a justice of the peace. The beauty of this is that those who want a religious marriage can have what they want. Those who want a civil marriage can have what they want. Best of all, no one is forced to do anything that they do not want to do. If a Roman Catholic priest does not want to marry a gay male couple, there is no law that says he has to. If a Unitarian Church minister wants to marry a lesbian couple, she should be allowed to.
Some people have messed with this system. They have acted on their religious, moral, or political beliefs to seek to impose their point of view on all Americans. By doing this, they actively interfere with other people's ability to practice their faith. A similar issue had come up previously, when people of different races where not allowed to marry in certain jurisdictions. Ultimately, the US Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia (1967) ruled this was unconstitutional. Sadly, the issue of whom the government will allow to be married is back again. This time the issue is back in the debate, political campaigns, legislation, constitutional amendments and court battles over same sex marriages.
The argument made by religious people is it is against the bible or that marriage has always been this way. Such an argument is in error. One need only look at Abraham who had a concubine and a wife. In the case of Jacob, he had two wives and two concubines. In the case of Solomon, he had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
Then there are the compromises such as civil union and domestic partners. This brings us back to the segregation of the South, where colored people were treated as separate but equal. Separate but equal turned out to be anything but equal and it took a long, painful and sometimes bloody civil rights movement to fix that. Just as separate but equal did not work then, there is no reason to expect it to work now. Proof of this can be found in the state of New Jersey, which has civil unions. New Jersey had a state commission review the Legal, Medical, Economic and Social Consequences of New Jersey’s Civil Union Law. The commission’s report catalogs an impressive series of failures of the law to provide the equal benefits of marriage that legislators claimed the law would provide. New Hampshire, which had civil unions for approximately two years, has changed its civil union law into a same sex marriage law and will automatically convert all civil unions to marriages in 2011. Those who wish to convert their civil unions into marriages can do so now without waiting to 2011.
Every faith tradition should be allowed to marry or not marry any couple they choose. Every clergy person should have the right to marry or not marry any couple they choose. For politicians and religious leaders to impose their view and their faith tradition on those not of that belief or faith tradition is just plan un-American.
Showing posts with label same sex marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label same sex marriage. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Shame On These Rabbis
By Gary Konecky
I am appalled that Jews who would team up with world class Jew haters to discriminate against gays and lesbians. It is stunts like this (baseless hatred) that is the reason we still do not have the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
Additionally, there is something fundamentally immoral about victims of
discrimination demanding that the government practice discrimination.
Rabbi Osher Lieberman and his fellow travelers (including Orthodox Union and the Jewish ghetto in Monsey, NY), need to explain to me, a fellow Jew, how economic insecurity resulting from not having adequate health insurance, not having the right to inherit property (G-d forbid my lover predeceases me), and so on strengthens the Jewish community.
Rabbi Osher Lieberman and all his fellow travelers need to explain to me
how economically hurting people, how discriminating against the stranger, how demanding the government enforce social policies akin to those of Sodom is in accordance with Jewish teaching.
Rabbi Osher Lieberman and his fellow travelers have decided to live in
a ghetto of their own making in Lakewood, and now these bigots need to go back to their ghetto in Lakewood and get out of my house and my intimate relationships.
However, as they have raised the issue of public policy, I feel it is now appropriate to ask how many Jews reproduce like rabbits and have so many children that they cannot afford to support them resulting in these families being on welfare? How many of these Jews have families so large that they do not pay income taxes on six figure incomes? If you are on the public dole, or if you do not pay income taxes, you have a huge amount of chutzpah telling us, the gays and lesbians who pay the taxes that support your irresponsible sex lives and resulting children, that we should be denied their civil rights.
Furthermore, “'This really hurts us,' said Rabbi Osher Lieberman." How does it hurt you? How does my having a mature, monogamous, loving relationship with a consenting adult hurt you? How?
Speaking on the subject of hurt, how many gays and lesbians will be the victims of hate crimes because of your bigotry. How much blood will you and all your fellow travelers be responsible for spilling when the Hebrew Bible tells you that you should not stand by while your fellow's blood is being shed. The Misnah teaches us “Whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved the entire world.” We also know the converse of this is true. So I ask you as bigoted Jews, how many worlds are you destroying to enshrine your bigotry into law?
Lastly, Rabbi Osher Lieberman, you and your fellow travelers owe every single gay and lesbian an apology for holding their personal lives up to public ridicule and name-calling.
Rabbis, heterosexuals join NJ gay marriage debate
By GEOFF MULVIHILL (AP) – December 1, 2009
LAKEWOOD, N.J. — The leaders in the local large Orthodox Jewish community go to great lengths to keep out the outside world, discouraging nonbusiness use of the Internet and encouraging strict filters to keep the ungodly out when members must use the Web.
But last month, several rabbis and other elders did something astounding for them: They took a public stand on a political issue, declaring their opposition to same-sex marriage in the state.
"This really hurts us," said Rabbi Osher Lieberman, a key figure in the community in the suburbs about 30 miles east of Trenton. "To say (it's) immoral is not enough."
He said community members are being encouraged to do whatever they can to make sure lawmakers don't vote to recognize gay marriage.
In a state that leans a bit left, the conservative rabbis are one of a handful of groups taking a passionate — and maybe surprising — role in a debate that's likely to be decided by January. The newly political rabbis have joined a coalition including Roman Catholic bishops, evangelicals and some black and Latino leaders.
The other side of the debate, anchored by a well-organized, well-connected gay rights group, is getting a boost from heterosexual liberals.
When Republican Chris Christie unseated Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in the gubernatorial election last month, it gave gay-rights activists more urgency to try to achieve their long-held goal of getting a same-sex marriage bill through the Legislature before Christie takes office Jan. 19.
The reason is simple: Corzine supports the bill. Christie says he would veto it.
If it's not passed by the end of the legislative session, that means the window will close for now on New Jersey joining Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut as the only states to recognize gay marriage.
Democratic lawmakers have been wrangling over whether the matter will get a debate in the Legislature. Most party leaders say they won't bring it up unless it looks as though it will pass.
Gay-rights supporters and social conservatives alike have been lobbying lawmakers, though it's a debate that doesn't seem to be enrapturing the state as a whole. Two polls last month found the public is divided over the issue. One found narrow support, the other narrow opposition.
But the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll, which found support, also showed that most residents think the issue is not a big deal.
It is a big deal to Betty Wyka, a museum employee from Parsippany who has long supported same-sex marriage. In February, she started volunteering for Garden State Equality, the state's main gay-rights group. Steven Goldstein, the chairman of the group, says that as a straight woman Wyka is typical of a new volunteer.
Wyka said she joined partly to counter a claim that gay-marriage opponents often make: that allowing gay couples to wed will make society value traditional marriages less.
"I got sick of hearing that same-sex marriage is going to impact my marriage. That's a bunch of hooey," she said. "It's a civil rights issue."
Lakewood's Orthodox community is mostly isolated from the rest of society. The men wear long beards, white shirts, black suits and black hats, and women are not nearly as visible as men. The community was founded in 1942 by a rabbinic leader who fled Poland and the Holocaust. It's now home to some 10,000 Orthodox families and the rabbinical school, which has more than 5,000 students.
Before last month's election, rabbis allowed distribution of a voting guide from the socially conservative New Jersey Family Policy Council. While religious institutions would not be required to marry gay couples, some say their religious freedom could be squeezed by permitting something they say runs against their beliefs.
Orthodox Jews, like many Christians, look to the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, which many interpret as saying that homosexuality is immoral.
A group of Lakewood community leaders granted an interview with an Associated Press reporter — a rarity and part of the effort to become involved in the push against gay marriage. The leaders said they're taking their position public because in the Internet age more information about the broader world is flowing into their community.
The large Orthodox community is not the first to speak out against the prospect of gay marriage. Last year, the New York-based Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America made a public statement in favor of California's Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment that outlawed gay marriage there months after a court allowed it.
And leaders in Lakewood say they received political guidance from some in the Orthodox Jewish community in Monsey, N.Y. In New York, the state Assembly already has passed a law to allow gay marriage, and the Senate is considering whether to follow.
Orthodox Jews traditionally have been regular voters who oppose candidates who support abortion rights and gay rights, said Yaakov S. Ariel, a professor of religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"The visible part is what's new," Ariel said. "The opinions and the support of candidates is not new."
What's especially troubling to some in Lakewood is not just that New Jersey might recognize same-sex marriages but that Orthodox Jews would be more likely now than in the past to know about it — and think that it's OK to be gay.
"These type of laws bring an exposure to our community," Rabbi Aaron Sarscher said.
And that's why there's a new voice in the debate.
"I really don't believe in getting involved in government," said another community leader, David Sofer. "But when an issue is so dangerous, you have to stop it."
I am appalled that Jews who would team up with world class Jew haters to discriminate against gays and lesbians. It is stunts like this (baseless hatred) that is the reason we still do not have the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
Additionally, there is something fundamentally immoral about victims of
discrimination demanding that the government practice discrimination.
Rabbi Osher Lieberman and his fellow travelers (including Orthodox Union and the Jewish ghetto in Monsey, NY), need to explain to me, a fellow Jew, how economic insecurity resulting from not having adequate health insurance, not having the right to inherit property (G-d forbid my lover predeceases me), and so on strengthens the Jewish community.
Rabbi Osher Lieberman and all his fellow travelers need to explain to me
how economically hurting people, how discriminating against the stranger, how demanding the government enforce social policies akin to those of Sodom is in accordance with Jewish teaching.
Rabbi Osher Lieberman and his fellow travelers have decided to live in
a ghetto of their own making in Lakewood, and now these bigots need to go back to their ghetto in Lakewood and get out of my house and my intimate relationships.
However, as they have raised the issue of public policy, I feel it is now appropriate to ask how many Jews reproduce like rabbits and have so many children that they cannot afford to support them resulting in these families being on welfare? How many of these Jews have families so large that they do not pay income taxes on six figure incomes? If you are on the public dole, or if you do not pay income taxes, you have a huge amount of chutzpah telling us, the gays and lesbians who pay the taxes that support your irresponsible sex lives and resulting children, that we should be denied their civil rights.
Furthermore, “'This really hurts us,' said Rabbi Osher Lieberman." How does it hurt you? How does my having a mature, monogamous, loving relationship with a consenting adult hurt you? How?
Speaking on the subject of hurt, how many gays and lesbians will be the victims of hate crimes because of your bigotry. How much blood will you and all your fellow travelers be responsible for spilling when the Hebrew Bible tells you that you should not stand by while your fellow's blood is being shed. The Misnah teaches us “Whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved the entire world.” We also know the converse of this is true. So I ask you as bigoted Jews, how many worlds are you destroying to enshrine your bigotry into law?
Lastly, Rabbi Osher Lieberman, you and your fellow travelers owe every single gay and lesbian an apology for holding their personal lives up to public ridicule and name-calling.
Rabbis, heterosexuals join NJ gay marriage debate
By GEOFF MULVIHILL (AP) – December 1, 2009
LAKEWOOD, N.J. — The leaders in the local large Orthodox Jewish community go to great lengths to keep out the outside world, discouraging nonbusiness use of the Internet and encouraging strict filters to keep the ungodly out when members must use the Web.
But last month, several rabbis and other elders did something astounding for them: They took a public stand on a political issue, declaring their opposition to same-sex marriage in the state.
"This really hurts us," said Rabbi Osher Lieberman, a key figure in the community in the suburbs about 30 miles east of Trenton. "To say (it's) immoral is not enough."
He said community members are being encouraged to do whatever they can to make sure lawmakers don't vote to recognize gay marriage.
In a state that leans a bit left, the conservative rabbis are one of a handful of groups taking a passionate — and maybe surprising — role in a debate that's likely to be decided by January. The newly political rabbis have joined a coalition including Roman Catholic bishops, evangelicals and some black and Latino leaders.
The other side of the debate, anchored by a well-organized, well-connected gay rights group, is getting a boost from heterosexual liberals.
When Republican Chris Christie unseated Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in the gubernatorial election last month, it gave gay-rights activists more urgency to try to achieve their long-held goal of getting a same-sex marriage bill through the Legislature before Christie takes office Jan. 19.
The reason is simple: Corzine supports the bill. Christie says he would veto it.
If it's not passed by the end of the legislative session, that means the window will close for now on New Jersey joining Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut as the only states to recognize gay marriage.
Democratic lawmakers have been wrangling over whether the matter will get a debate in the Legislature. Most party leaders say they won't bring it up unless it looks as though it will pass.
Gay-rights supporters and social conservatives alike have been lobbying lawmakers, though it's a debate that doesn't seem to be enrapturing the state as a whole. Two polls last month found the public is divided over the issue. One found narrow support, the other narrow opposition.
But the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll, which found support, also showed that most residents think the issue is not a big deal.
It is a big deal to Betty Wyka, a museum employee from Parsippany who has long supported same-sex marriage. In February, she started volunteering for Garden State Equality, the state's main gay-rights group. Steven Goldstein, the chairman of the group, says that as a straight woman Wyka is typical of a new volunteer.
Wyka said she joined partly to counter a claim that gay-marriage opponents often make: that allowing gay couples to wed will make society value traditional marriages less.
"I got sick of hearing that same-sex marriage is going to impact my marriage. That's a bunch of hooey," she said. "It's a civil rights issue."
Lakewood's Orthodox community is mostly isolated from the rest of society. The men wear long beards, white shirts, black suits and black hats, and women are not nearly as visible as men. The community was founded in 1942 by a rabbinic leader who fled Poland and the Holocaust. It's now home to some 10,000 Orthodox families and the rabbinical school, which has more than 5,000 students.
Before last month's election, rabbis allowed distribution of a voting guide from the socially conservative New Jersey Family Policy Council. While religious institutions would not be required to marry gay couples, some say their religious freedom could be squeezed by permitting something they say runs against their beliefs.
Orthodox Jews, like many Christians, look to the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, which many interpret as saying that homosexuality is immoral.
A group of Lakewood community leaders granted an interview with an Associated Press reporter — a rarity and part of the effort to become involved in the push against gay marriage. The leaders said they're taking their position public because in the Internet age more information about the broader world is flowing into their community.
The large Orthodox community is not the first to speak out against the prospect of gay marriage. Last year, the New York-based Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America made a public statement in favor of California's Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment that outlawed gay marriage there months after a court allowed it.
And leaders in Lakewood say they received political guidance from some in the Orthodox Jewish community in Monsey, N.Y. In New York, the state Assembly already has passed a law to allow gay marriage, and the Senate is considering whether to follow.
Orthodox Jews traditionally have been regular voters who oppose candidates who support abortion rights and gay rights, said Yaakov S. Ariel, a professor of religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"The visible part is what's new," Ariel said. "The opinions and the support of candidates is not new."
What's especially troubling to some in Lakewood is not just that New Jersey might recognize same-sex marriages but that Orthodox Jews would be more likely now than in the past to know about it — and think that it's OK to be gay.
"These type of laws bring an exposure to our community," Rabbi Aaron Sarscher said.
And that's why there's a new voice in the debate.
"I really don't believe in getting involved in government," said another community leader, David Sofer. "But when an issue is so dangerous, you have to stop it."
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