[Previous sermon: "Shabbat Bo - January 30, 2004"] [Next sermon: "Chukat-Physician Assisted Suicide - June 25, 2004"]
Shabbat - Chol Hamoed Pesach - April 9, 2004
When we think of the civil rights movement, we think of the fight for equality for people of color. Those tumultuous years in the 1960's laid the groundwork in subsequent decades for the advancement of rights for women, people with differing abilities and sexual orientation that today most of us take for granted. As a young gay New Yorker said recently, "Living here, [Ed and I] are accepted as a [gay couple], and our kids are accepted. On the outside everything was just fine... Where our kids go to school nobody even blinked that we were two guys with kids. And so this driving need for equality [in marriage] was sort of squelched because, I felt, for all intents and purposes, except for tax returns, that I was treated equally." However, he continued, "The reality of it is that we haven't been equal and we bought into it." (New York Times, March 14, 2004) In the most wonderful way, a grassroots movement, has begun in our decade towards the advancement of next body of civil rights. That is, the movement towards granting gays and lesbians the right to legal civil marriage. Most of us know someone who is gay or lesbian. Perhaps we know a committed gay couple. Allow me to provide you an example of the discrimination our current laws tolerate.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener, who is also a professor at the Hebrew Union College, and Judith Law, her partner of 17 years, recently had to appear before the federal agency from which Law was retiring in order to plead for their rights to list Rabbi Wiener as the beneficiary of her pension. They not only had to document that they shared a home, bank account, credit cards and other assets lending their partnership credibility, they also had to demonstrate that Rabbi Wiener did not wish her partner to die, in order to claim the pension. Eventually, the agency allowed Law to list Rabbi Wiener as beneficiary, but only after she accepted a 25 percent cut in the pension payments and after Rabbi Wiener agreed to claim only 50 percent of the reduced pension should her partner die first. For married heterosexual couples, this process would have ended at filling in a name on a form and submitting it, no questions asked. Taxes, insurance, investments, retirement and estate planning are time consuming, confusing issues for any couple.
For same sex couples in committed, non-legally sanctioned relationships these matters are infinitely more complicated. Without the benefits of marriage, they must build legal relationships one step at a time, hiring costly lawyers and expert financial planners to craft contracts and agreements covering everything from dispositions of joint assets to inheritances, and hospital visitation rights. And then, if they succeed in intertwining their assets legally, they can still face steep tax penalties with the IRS. Currently, gay couples have no access to Social Security retirement and survivor benefits, automatic workplace health and pension benefits coverage without tax penalty, automatic inheritance rights in the absence of a will, or lower insurance rates granted to married couples. Moreover, a legally married person can leave an unlimited amount to a spouse without owing one penny of estate tax, but a domestic partner would be subject to the 1.5 million dollar limitation.
Civil Unions, like those instituted in Vermont in 2000, and which have been recognized in New York City since 1993 provide only some of the benefits of marriage, but do not address the difficulties raised by the federal laws governing taxes, estates, disability benefits and social security. At the same time, without any protections under the law going into partnerships, gays and lesbians also face added difficulties in dissolving relationships. Just one instance is that divorce law for heterosexuals provides for stay at home parents, but there are no legal protections for those never legally married.
Despite the fact that President Bush signaled his wish to pass a constitutional amendment barring marriage for gays and lesbians, and that statistics indicate that a high percentage of Americans are uncomfortable with homosexuality, even old statistics indicate a clear majority of Americans believe homosexuals should enjoy equal civil rights under the law. Given these societal trends towards an increased tolerance of diverse sexual orientation, the religious right has, in the wake of Vermont, Massachusetts, San Francisco and New York accused religious left of simply embracing the goals of liberal America with regard to gay marriage. But for thoughtful and principled liberal Jews, one does not have to be manipulated by public opinion to determine a validly Jewish stance. There are many core Jewish values to undergird our support of this grassroots movement for legalized marriage for gays and lesbians. First is our desire as Jews to actualize the biblical quest for justice. The twofold command in Deuteronomy, tzedek tzedek tirdof, justice, justice shalt thou pursue, is worded this way to help us understand that justice is predicated on the realization that as circumstances change, so must our mechanisms of justice accommodate new the situations that confront us. Clearly the laws of our country have yet to adapt to the presence of committed, monogamous and procreative homosexual relationships. Second, our bible teaches us that all humanity is created b'zelem elohim, in the image of God, and as such we are further beckoned to respond to the discrimination our legal system perpetrates against those loving same sex couples who wish to join their lives.
And third, especially at this season of Passover, we are reminded of the age old biblical refrain, "You shall not oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt and you know the heart of the stranger." Reform Jews who take these Biblical injunctions seriously can assert with religious integrity that these mitzvot provide sufficient sanction for the claim that Jewish tradition can permit gays and lesbians to enjoy the same privileges and entitlements that heterosexuals do. However, at the same time, as thoughtful religious people, we still must deal with the mention of homosexuality in Leviticus 18, the one which calls it an abomination. As the Catholic feminist scholar, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, has maintained: any passage of scripture that diminishes the humanity of another - as Leviticus 18:22 does - can surely be questioned. The thrust of one such passage should not override an overarching biblical ideal that teaches us that God loves and affirms the full humanity of each human being. Moreover, the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone, has no parallel in Jewish tradition.
To the contrary. Judaism asserts that moral truth emerges out of an interpretive process that requires Jews to recognize that we are obligated to participate in the unfolding expression of divine truths, and that this obligation can only be achieved through an ongoing interpretation of the written text. It was this same notion that the Rabbis of the Talmud relied upon to declare that the one instance of the rebellious son in Deuteronomy "never was and never will be." (Sanhedrin 71a) It was this exegetical process which caused Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai to assert that a women accused of adultery would no longer be subject to the ordeal of mayim hamarim, the bitter waters ordeal which is enumerated in the book of Numbers. In modern times, it is this ability for Jewish law to change and to accommodate which has led a preponderance of Halachic authorities to permit deaf-mutes from acting as witnesses in Jewish legal settings, despite the uncontested fact that they are barred by classical tradition from doing so. The rabbis permit it today because they acknowledge the existence of educational methods to teach those who lack speech or hearing. To insist on the ban under these circumstances is both illogical and immoral, despite the earlier Rabbinic prohibition.
In the early 20th century, when the Land of Israel was being settled, a debate arose concerning the extension of voting rights to women. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, who established the chief rabbinate in prestate Israel, opposed granting suffrage rights to women fearing that such a right would jeopardize traditional gender roles and thereby destroy the Jewish family. Rabbi Ben Zion Meir Hai Ouziel, who later became the first chief Sephardic Rabbi of the State of Israel, disagreed, asserting that "basic human right" of suffrage could not be denied of the female gender. Thankfully, his view prevailed.
(Sources from Rabbi David Ellenson, The Jewish Week, Feb 2004 and Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Feb 2004)
