Topical and brilliant

[liv]

Everybody's been writing stuff using only the 1000 most common words according the slightly strange corpus that XCKD used in the famous Up-goer5 poster. This one beats them all into a cocked hat, and I can't for the life of me remember where I saw the link:
firecat rewrites a Shakespeare sonnet in Up-goer 5, while preserving the metre.

And everybody in my social circle is talking about the recent vote in the UK House of Commons accepting the bill which will allow recognition of marriages between same-sex couples (as opposed to restricting them to civil partnerships which are exactly identical to marriage except with a different name). This is a pretty big symbolic victory, though there are still massive gaping holes in terms of equal provision for trans and non-binary people. Anyway, in the course of the ensuing discussion, someone (again, I've forgotten who it was, sorry) linked to a really thoughtful piece by Masorti rabbi R Jeremy Gordon:
What should a gay Jew do?

Writing like R Gordon's gives me some hope that I don't need to just give up on religious denominations that consider a scriptural prohibition on homosexual relationships to be valid. I fully accept that even the narrowest interpretation of such laws can be extremely hurtful to gay people, and I don't want to diminish that. However, there's a big difference between compassionate, nuanced views like R Gordon's who insists on a sense of proportion and wants to support and honour same-sex relationships even if he believes a particular sex act is Biblically forbidden, versus various church leaders recently who have been going around saying that same-sex marriage is the worst thing in the world ever. I'm lucky in some ways that I don't have to choose between my religion and caring about LGBT+ rights; the UK Reform Movement sat on the fence for far too long, but eventually did follow Liberal Judaism in accepting Jewish same-sex marriages and indeed added themselves to political calls for religious equality in the matter of performing legally valid same-sex marriages.

Obviously I would prefer it if all religions joined the 21^st century and started sanctifying same-sex marriages. But I think there is room in the world, at least right now if not forever into the future, for religions which only recognize opposite sex marriages but still treat their with GSM congregants with genuine respect. It takes real courage on both sides to create communities where this kind of accommodation is possible. And I think R Gordon exemplifies that courage, particularly in publicly taking a position that will probably cause him to be reviled by the right-wing sections of his religious community.

Comments

[shreena]

Obviously, as you know, am an atheist and therefore have no personal interest in this but.. I have always found it genuinely puzzling that some Jews will follow all kinds of quite detailed rituals and prohibitions when it comes to things like food but seem not to agree with scriptural prohibitions on premarital sex or homosexuality. I've never quite figured out the reasoning.

[liv]

It's a good question! I think partly it's a historical accident; in the 20^th century in western Europe, Israel and the US, observance of food prohibitions and sabbath prohibitions have become a major badge of identity for a lot of Jews. In other times it's quite often been ritual clothing that played that role. But currently, you'll often hear "religious" used as if it were almost synonymous with "doesn't drive or use electricity on the sabbath, eats only food that has been formally certified as kosher".

There's a category of religious laws which are very public facing and tend to kept (or breached) as a community, rather than on an individual basis. For example, I am pretty rigorous about what food I prepare in my own home, not because I passionately believe that those laws are of paramount importance, but because I want my friends who observe those laws strictly to feel comfortable eating in my house. And I want to be able to bring food into the synagogue to share; it makes sense to default to following the strictest observance within the community because the less observant people can still eat the more strictly kosher food. By always checking the food I eat to ensure it meets religious standards, I assert my Jewish identity as a part of my everyday life.

Conversely, when I breach religious laws regarding sex, it only affects me (and possibly my partner, though right now I'm involved only with non-Jews, which is in itself violating a prohibition.) I'm not in any way disturbing the members of my community and making them feel they're not in a Jewish sort of environment, because they have nothing to do with my sex life anyway. It's not only about wanting to be perceived to be observant, though that's part of it, it's about actually creating a communal context, which sabbath observance and kosher strictures contribute to, but sexual morality really doesn't.

As for your specific examples, scriptural prohibitions on premarital sex or homosexuality are honestly somewhat ambiguous. A particular sex act between two men is prohibited in a couple of places in the Torah; people argue about the translation of what exactly the sex act is but many assume it to be anal sex (others restrict it to only non-consensual anal penetration, others broaden it out to any act between men that results in ejaculation, and there are other interpretations). That's not by any means a prohibition on experiencing desire for a member of the same sex, or having what in our current culture we would call a homosexual or bisexual orientation / identity, nor is it a prohibition on forming life-long, monogamous pair-bonds for the sake of organizing a household [ie: marrying] with a partner of the same sex. Premarital sex (with someone you would be free to marry if you chose to, I'm not talking about adultery or other prohibited categories here) is probably more disapproved of than actually prohibited and there's a range of different opinions in different texts over how bad it actually is. Compared to the vast volumes of material on exactly how to prepare and investigate food to ensure that it's kosher, or on proper observance of the sabbath, there's pretty lean pickings.

That said, I don't deny that creating an institution of religious same-sex marriage is a fairly radical break with traditional practice up to the end of the 20th century. This is why I have sympathy with people like R Gordon who acknowledge that there is a meaningful conflict between religious tradition and full inclusion of gay people within the community. I don't think it's inherently homophobic to acknowledge that, rather than just saying, ok, those prohibitions are outdated now, let's just do whatever we feel like.

[shreena]

Thank you for that really interesting and thoughtful response. I shall ponder further.

Just read the linked article as well - also extremely interesting.

[mathcathy]

I don't agree that religions should sanctify same sex marriages in order to move into the 21st century. I actually think marriage, particularly in the one partner format of western cultures is a more secular than religious culture.

However, one point of religion is that the members follow practices which set them apart from nonmembers. What right do nonmembers have to demand that members do certain things or he told that they are homophobic or out of date? I think that's an unreasonable attitude.

A very 21st century inclusive attitude, yes, but not inclusive of people who hold different beliefs and unitedly carry out different practices.

[liv]

I don't think we actually disagree, here, I entirely endorse what you're saying. It's absolutely true that religions are expected and supposed to do things differently from general society, and in order to be functional they have to be a little bit conservative, rather than just going along with whatever's currently fashionable. I personally would prefer it if religions followed 21^st century trends in this particular respect, but I'm certainly not going to demand that religions (especially religions I don't belong to) change their approach to suit me.

It's not homophobic to interpret your religion's understanding of marriage as not being applicable to same-sex couples. It's hurtful, it excludes people, and I think religious leaders would do well to acknowledge that (as for example R Gordon does in the blog post I linked to). But that's not in itself a reason to "force" religious groups to sanctify marriages that don't fit in with their idea of what marriage is supposed to be.

What's homophobic is things like writing letters to be read out in every church in the country about how terrible same-sex marriage is (when you don't normally send letters round about other bad things). Or making public statements that even secular same-sex marriage is the worst threat to contemporary society or the worst thing to happen to the church throughout history. It's not even people forgetting that there's such a thing as genocide, some people have directly been saying that same-sex marriage is worse than the Holocaust! I can only regard that as homophobic. R Gordon talks about a sense of proportion, and if someone preaches that two men marrying eachother is literally worse than murder and war and poverty and religious persecution and child abuse, then they completely lack the sense of proportion which ought to come from seeing gay people as real people who might (according to some theologies) be committing a sin.

[mathcathy]

I think that the reason that letters like that are sent and read out is that people are making an issue of it and members of those religions feel threatened. It's a very simple case of "two wrongs don't make a right". Comments like yours about how religious organisations should move into the 21st century with regard to same sex marriages can easily be interpreted (I did) as someone external insisting that the internal practices and identity should be changed. A perfect person, or perfect organisation, would brush off external criticism and not respond, or understand that the external pressures should not be sufficient. (Islam does this better than Christianity, it seems to me that they are more rooted in their religious identity somehow). No people are perfect, though, and religious organisations are made up of lots of less than perfect people. So of course the reaction to feeling threatened isn't going to be perfect every time.

Irrationality comes with the feeling of threat, and threatening someone's identity and beliefs can result in all manner of responses. I don't think that the movement towards equality for homosexuality in all religions and cultures is at all sensitive in its approach.

Two wrongs.

What will happen, I wonder, when Christians become accepted as a minority and can fight for their beliefs from the platform of underdog?

[liv]

Thank you, I think that's a helpful perspective. I really couldn't imagine why someone in a position of authority would claim that same-sex marriage was worse than genocide, and coming from a position of feeling threatened makes somewhat more sense than just hating gay people that much. And I can see how it's a vicious circle, gay people hear this kind of comment and respond by saying "all religious people are evil homophobic bigots" and that makes the religious groups feel further threatened. Bleh.

And in that context of mutual escalation, my post where I explicitly say that there's room for religions which only recognize opposite sex marriages, where I express admiration for the courage and brilliance of a rabbi who believes that SSM is forbidden, it sounds like I'm demanding that religious people should change their customs and identity. I can only imagine how it would come across if I were more personally angry and hurt about religious homophobia!

[sophiacatherine]

Just wanted to say - the bill hasn't been passed yet. News outlets keep saying it has, which is surprising (and irritating), as it still has a committee stage, another vote in the Commons, and several stages in the Lords to go through. There are MPs who voted 'for' this time who are are saying that they will vote against at the final reading. All the signs are looking good, but we're not there yet.

The trans issues are a problem, but the bill will improve things for some trans people, including those who have had to get divorces because they've changed their sex on their birth certificates but are now (officially) married to people of the same sex. That will end, thankfully. It would help a lot more if the government would extend civil partnerships to mixed-sex couples (and stop talking about 'sex' or 'gender' at all), of course.

I'm looking forward to getting my 'marriage upgrade' eventually (I'm in a civil partnership)! My partner is non-binary, so we do fall into the category of people who (to some extent) have to pretend to be one thing or another - but my partner is labelled female, and we do want full recognition for our marriage.

[liv]

Thanks for this informative comment. I am aware that it's still an early stage, I'm carefully calling it a bill and not an Act. The fact of the bill winning a free vote in the Commons by such a huge margin is itself pretty big, even if there are still many hurdles in the way of actually having a legal framework for same-sex marriages. I think even a couple of years ago that wouldn't have been thinkable, certainly not in 2005 when we first got CPs at all.

My understanding of the trans stuff is based on auntysarah's summary, and she's usually pretty good on the technicalities of this. What I got from her post is that in future trans people will be able to get their GRC without having to dissolve their marriages, but trans people who already had to get divorced and recreate a CP in the past aren't getting any redress, let alone any fix to the situation. And yeah, I really think both marriage and CP should be completely gender-neutral, there is no point specifying that they have to be "same-sex" or "opposite sex".

I hope things work out so you can get your "upgrade" soon!

[sophiacatherine]

Also, I was involved with the LGBT Christian movement for a long time (while I was still a Christian), and I saw a lot of churches and Christian groups starting to make progress on the issue. Ten years ago, when I started my activism in that area, we were welcome in far fewer churches than we are now. I have hope that things will continue to improve.

[liv]

There really really has been progress; religions are in fact not indifferent to huge social pressure. I remember very well that in the 90s there was an absolutely huge row, which felt like it was about to break apart all the UK Progressive movements, because a particular rabbi gave a sermon saying it was about time we started marrying same-sex couples in synagogue.

In the 2000s a student rabbi was murdered by a serial killer who preyed on men at gay clubs; everybody was saying that if he had been straight, he wouldn't even have been going to clubs looking for casual sex, because that's not the sort of behaviour one expects from a rabbinical student. But the stigma at the time was still strong enough that there was pretty much no behaviour that would have been fully accepted within the community, there was no community-approved dating scene where he could have looked for a nice respectable potential husband.

[jack]

Wow, the first comments on this post were really productive. Yay for sensible conversations.