|
|
|
|
Link to actual resource
|
http://jrf.org/showrt&rid=513
|
|
|
Resource type
|
Article
|
|
|
Description/Summary
|
In the months following her family commitment ceremony which celebrated her coming together with her partner and with their children, Rabbi Toba Spitzer writes about the decision in Massachusetts to support civil marriage for LGBT couples. Rabbi Spitzer finds it upsetting that religion is used to validate attitudes against same-sex marriage. She tells the reader that the Bible is the last place she would turn to in order to find guidance in approaching the challenges and triumphs of modern-day family relationships. She ends with a call to action for Reconstructionist Jews – to speak out in “defense of marriage” so that gay and lesbian people may take on the rights and responsibilities of marriage.
|
|
|
Excerpt
|
“The Torah does not know marriage as a state institution, but as a relationship between families and between individual men and women. Polygamy was common. (According to the Torah, Isaac is our only monogamous forefather!) The Bible condemns certain homosexual acts and celebrates the profound love of Ruth and Naomi and of Jonathan and David — and on all counts, our contemporary notions of “sexual orientation” are completely foreign to it. The reality is that religious understandings of marriage and family have evolved over the centuries in a variety of ways, and it is simply arrogant to ascribe to God our own very human assumptions and biases.”
|
|
|
Author
|
Rabbi Toba Spitzer, Congregation Dorshei Tzedek.
|
|
|
Publication name/source
|
Reconstructionism Today
|
|
|
Publication date
|
Winter 2003-2004
|
|
|
Disseminating organization/ institution
|
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
|
|
|
Movement affiliation
|
Reconstructionst
|
|
|
Publisher/ producer/ broadcaster
|
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
|
