Livre d'Or

I think I am likely to be susceptible to nasty liberal prejudices against conservatives, for sure. I think what you're saying here is that my rephrasing of your comment (which I intended as emphatic agreement) has changed the impact of what you were telling me, is that right?

What's key here? Perhaps I've skimmed over the fact that there genuinely are Bad People Out There, and that an effective community genuinely does need to protect its people from harm from such people? The problem then would be misidentifying gay people as a threat, as a group who need to be excluded in order to prevent harm to the congregation, rather than the fact of exclusion. Is that any closer to your point?

I think my own community has policies and practices which are exclusionary in many ways; unlike the more universalist religions which bother me because they try to force their religious beliefs on others, Jewish communities are only open to people who were either born in or go through considerable effort to join the tribe. So I think it's fair to say that I myself see some positive sides to exclusion, and in some lights I am willing to see the hurt caused by that as collateral damage. I feel defensive about applying this model to myself because (being a good little liberal!) I don't see non-Jews as in any way "unworthy" or "vicious". However I have no doubt at all that Jewish particularism can easily come across that way, and it's not always a false impression either.