Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 23, No. 30, Ed. 1 Friday, December 8, 2006 Page: 24 of 84
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Jewish scholars ease ban on ordaining gays
Committee on Jewish Law and Standards adopts policies that give gays a
wider role while stopping short of fully accepting gay clergy
HEW YORK—Conservative Jewish scholars
eased their ban Wednesday on ordaining gays,
upending thousands of years of precedent while
stopping short of fully accepting gay clergy.
The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards,
which interprets religious law for the movement,
adopted three starkly conflicting policies that
nonetheless gave gays a wider role, Four com-
mittee members who wanted to uphold the ban
resigned in protest after the vote.
One policy maintains the prohibition against
gay clergy. Another, billed as a compromise,
maintains a ban on male sodomy but permits gay
ordination and allows blessing ceremonies for
same-sex couples. The third policy supports the
ban on gay sex in Jewish law and notes that some
gays have successfully undergone therapy that
changes their sexual orientation.
That leaves seminaries and synagogues to
decide on their own which approach to follow.
The decision will test what Conservative Jewish
leaders call their "big tent" — allowing diverse
practices by the movement's more than 1,000
rabbis and 750 North American synagogues.
"We believe in pluralism," said Rabbi Kassel
Abelson, the committee chairman, in announcing
the vote. "We recognized from the very begin-
ning of this movement that no single position can
speak to all members of the community."
But Rabbi Joel Roth, one of the four members
By Rachel Zoll AP Religion Writer
who resigned, said the decision was "outside the
pale of acceptability" in Jewish law. Roth was
author of the paper that upheld the ban.
The 25-member panel voted at the end of a
two-day closed meeting in an Upper East Side
synagogue. Students from Keshet, a gay advoca-
cy group at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the
flagship school of Conservative Judaism, hud-
dled outside as they awaited the results.
Jay Michaelson, director of Nehirim, a group
that provides spiritual retreats and other pro-
graming for gay Jews, said he was "pleased not
thrilled" about the vote.
Conservative leaders are facing the issue as
they struggle to hold the shrinking middle ground
of American Judaism, losing members to both
the liberal Reform and the traditional Orthodox
branches. Reform Jews, as well as the smaller
Reconstructionist branch, allow gays to become
rabbis; the Orthodox bar gays and women from
ordination. The Reform movement praised the
committee's vote Wednesday, while the
Orthodox called it a rejection of "authentic Torah
traditions."
It's unclear whether any congregations in the
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the
synagogue arm of the movement, will break
away because of the vote.
A handful of Canadian congregations, which
tend to be more traditional than their U.S. coun-
terparts, have said they would consider the idea.
Leaders believe the more likely response is that
individuals who object to the change will leave to
worship in Orthodox synagogues.
The last major Law Committee vote on gay
relationships came in 1992, when the panel voted
19-3;, with one abstention, that Jewish law barred
openly gay students from seminaries and prohib-
ited rabbis from officiating at gay union cere-
monies.
The rabbis chose among five "teshuvot" or
legal opinions. The two main opinions — for and
against lifting the ban — received 13 votes each.
An opinion needs only six votes to pass, allow-
ing more than one paper to be accepted.
Rabbi Elliot Dorff, vice chairman of the panel
and a co-author of the pro-gay legal opinion,
argued that the biblical verse at the center of the
debate — Leviticus 18:22, which states, "Do not
lie with a male as one lies with a woman" — had
been interpreted too broadly in the past.
He said Conservative Judaism's ability to
"integrate tradition and modernity" allowed for
the change.
Dorff is rector of The Ziegler School of
Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, which also
trains Conservative rabbis. He said he expected
the school to announce within the next several
weeks that it will accept gay and lesbian appli-
cants.
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Nash, Tammye. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 23, No. 30, Ed. 1 Friday, December 8, 2006, newspaper, December 8, 2006; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth238938/m1/24/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.