NEW YORK When the Republican candidate for New York governor, Carl Paladino, addressed an Orthodox crowd on Sunday, Oct. 10, about his opposition to pride parades and how children shouldnt be brainwashed into thinking being homosexual is OK, he clearly thought hed find a receptive audience.
He was right.
Orthodox viewpoints on homosexuality are derived from the Torah, which is clear in its condemnation of intimate homosexual relations, and Orthodox leaders almost uniformly oppose celebrating gay identity.
Sometimes people feel that they have the right to make their choices and then to obligate others to celebrate their choices, said Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, a past president of the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County in northern New Jersey.
We believe that we cannot celebrate these choices.
Yet on other issues discrimination, violence against homosexuals the Orthodox community appears unsure about how to act.
While Conservative and Reform leaders issued statements condemning the violence following a spate of recent suicides in the US evidently prompted by bullying, in at least one case leading to a suicide, and the Oct. 3 beating of a Bronx, NY, man, Orthodox voices largely have been silent.
We dont issue statements in response to every single incident on every single situation that happens across the board, said Nathan Diament, director of the Orthodox Unions Institute for Public Affairs.
THE dilemma for Orthodox leaders is how to condemn anti-homosexual activity without being seen as endorsing the mainstreaming of the homosexual lifestyle, as one Orthodox spokesman put it. For many that means not addressing the issue of the violence or discrimination at all. For others it means addressing the issue only when pressed or absolutely necessary.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, spiritual leader of one of the biggest modern Orthodox synagogues in New Jersey, Bnai Yeshurun of Teaneck, said he is against violence against any person or group, but he declined to address violence against homosexuals specifically.
I cant say more than Ive said, he told JTA.
When Yeshiva University, the flagship institution of modern Orthodoxy, held a forum last December on being a homosexual in the Orthodox world, the president of the university, Richard Joel, declined to attend.
Instead he issued a statement warning that the event could send the wrong message about the Torahs opposition to homosexuality.
We want to reiterate the absolute prohibition of homosexual relationships according to Jewish law, Joel wrote in a statement co-authored with Rabbi Yona Reiss, the dean of YUs rabbinical school.
We are committed to providing halachic 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.
Joel did not respond to requests from JTA for interviews for this story.
Rabbi Avi Shafran, spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, said the traditional Orthodox community is appalled by hate violence against anyone, including homosexuals, but that the community is also deeply dismayed at the ongoing and increasingly successful public and media campaign to mainstream the homosexual lifestyle.
It might have been insensitive for Paladino to reiterate his opposition to this lifestyle in the immediate wake of anti-homosexual violence, Shafran said, but that was a matter of sensitivity to feelings.
For his part Paladino, after his remarks to the Orthodox audience in Brooklyn made national news, was unapologetic.
But the candidate also took pains to say that discrimination against homosexuals was horrible and should not be tolerated.
SOME Orthodox Jews say that stance rejecting homosexuality but condemning discrimination should be a model for the Orthodox community.
Goldin, the spiritual leader of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, NJ, said he has spoken from the pulpit against anti-homoxesual discrimination and encourages others to do so. Goldin is vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America, the main modern Orthodox rabbinic organization.
The Orthodox approach is guided by two principles that are somewhat conflicting, Goldin said.
We believe in respect for all individuals regardless of their sexual orientation and stand adamantly against any physical, mental or social violence committed against them.
At the same time we have a deep commitment to the integrity of Torah law, which clearly proscribes same-sex relationships.
The OU opposes same-sex marriages and is lobbying for religious groups to be exempted, on the basis of religious liberty, from a proposed federal law that would bar workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Asked about the recent suicides and the beating in the Bronx, Diament said, Were on record as being opposed to acts of violence and harassment, and certainly any criminal activity against individuals based on their identity or perceptions of their identity.
REFORM and Conservative leaders have had fewer qualms about speaking out.
The Reform movement believes same-sex unions are worthy of affirmation through appropriate Jewish ritual and advocates for legalizing same-sex unions.
The Conservative movement, while outlawing an intimate relationship between men, began accepting homosexual students at the Jewish Theological Seminarys rabbinical school three years ago.
Following last months suicide by a Rutgers University student after his roommate posted a video on the Internet in a sex act with another male, Rabbi Steven Wernick, the executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, wrote an open letter to Jewish teens and college students discussing how bullying is antithetical to Judaism and offering resources to adolescents feeling bullied or considering suicide.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said, The Union encourages every congregation and school to create an anti-bullying program that addresses both sexual orientation and gender identity. We must not stand idly by and wait for the next tragedy to occur.
