Jewish position on homosexuality
Stances of Faiths on LGBTQ+ Issues: Reform Judaism
BACKGROUND
According to the Union for Reform Judaism, “The great contribution of Reform Judaism is that it has enabled the Jewish people to introduce innovation while preserving tradition, to embrace diversity while asserting commonality, to affirm beliefs without rejecting those who doubt, and to bring faith to sacred texts without sacrificing critical scholarship.”
While synagogues operate as autonomous communities, the Reform Movement follows policies set by the Union of Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis and draws on the affiliated resources of such organizations as the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism or Institute for Judaism, Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity. (See Resources below.)
LGBTQ+ EQUALITY
ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION & GENDER IDENTITY
As preliminary as , the Central Conference of American Rabbis passed a resolution that called for “legislation which decriminalizes homosexual acts between consenting adults, and prohibits discrimination against them as persons.” They further r
The liberal Jewish movements have undergone dramatic shifts in their approach to gay, lesbian and transgender Jews in the past two decades, but among the Orthodox the changes have been far less dramatic — and in many quarters, virtually nonexistent.
Two seemingly adj biblical denunciations of homosexual sex, as well as the corpus of rabbinic commentaries and legal codes based on those verses, limit how far Orthodox Judaism, marked by its fidelity to traditional understandings of Jewish law, or halacha, can move on this subject.
Though several efforts include emerged in recent years to lend more support to Orthodox Jews experiencing homosexual desires and make the community more adj and welcoming toward them, all these efforts stop short of sanctioning gay relationships.
Theological and Legal Limitations
Across the spectrum of Orthodox practice, the consensus view is that gay sex and marriage are inconsistent with Jewish tradition. The objection is rooted in two verses in Leviticus that expressly prohibit a man from lying with another man “as one lies with a woman,” an
Homosexuality in Jewish Law
Among the sexual perversions proscribed as criminal offenses in the moral code of the Torah are homosexual relations between males (Lev. ). Both offending parties are threatened with capital punishment (Lev. ), though minors under 13 years of age are exempt from this as from any other penalty (Sanh. 54a). Talmudic law extends the prohibition, but not the penalty, which is limited to flagellation, also to lesbianism, i.e., homosexual intimacies between women, based on the general warning not to indulge in the abhorrent practices of the Egyptians and the Canaanites (Sifra ). While the laws on both offenses are codified by Maimonides (Yad, Issurei Bi’ah, ; and ), the prohibition of homosexuality proper is omitted from R. Joseph Caro’sShulhan Arukh. This omission reflects the perceived absence of homosexuality among Jews rather than any difference of views on the criminality of these acts.
The Bible refers to actual incidents involving homosexuality only in describing the abominations of the sinful metropolis of Sodom, where the entire population demanded of Lo
Stances of Faiths on LGBTQ+ Issues: Orthodox Judaism
There is no central governing body but despite the different forms it has taken they all disseminate some common principles of faith and a deep loyalty to Halacha or Jewish law. Halacha is a code of behavior that covers a vast range of ethical rules, social mores, ritual practices and spiritual disciplines. A quarter of the medieval code, the Shulchan Aruch, which to this day guides Orthodox Jews, focuses on sexual train and marriage. Judaism celebrates creation as an inherent good. Consequently, Jewish law does not disparage sex. However, Orthodox tradition only supports heterosexual relations and only within the context of heterosexual marriage.
Orthodox tradition is religiously organized and socially structured by biblical and rabbinic teachings on fixed gender roles, creating separate religious duties and always separate spaces for men and women during worship. Orthodox Judaism believes that the Torah is of divine origin and represents the pos of G-d. Jewish sacred texts, commonly understood in the Christian world as the