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| Love your fellow man as you would yourself (Forward) |
That surely does not however solve the problem that Jewish gay people who are otherwise fully observant must deal with. The hard cold fact is that there is still a significant number of Orthodox Jews that do not really understand the problem and see it simply as a matter of self control. Or worse see it as something that can be ‘fixed’ with the ‘right’ kind of therapy. I cannot understate the serious problem with this kind of thinking and the magnitude of its impact on people that are gay.
The question is in how to properly deal with this issue if you are observant. That is especially true of gay Jews, but it is true as well for those of us that are straight. What is one to do if they are gay while at the same time observant - and yet the only way they can express their desires in ways that are forbidden by the Torah? And how are the rest of us supposed to react to people that are gay?
How gay people should deal with it is beyond my pay-grade.
On the other hand how accepting should we be of people that are openly gay? That may be one of the most difficult questions to answer in our day. Not that I haven’t tried.
I have always contended that there has to be balance between accepting gay people without judging them while at the same time not appearing to permit, encourage, or worse - aggrandize what the Torah forbids. Which is why I am for example opposed to the idea of a gay pride parade.
That said, I understand why advocates support it. They will say it isn’t about being proud of being gay. It is about having pride in one’s self as a human being and not succumbing to the taunts and disparagement of societal rejection by a sill large segment of the population. A segment that does not separate the sin from the sinner. Advocates will say that gay people need the kind of validation of self that a gay pride parade is intended to give them. The pride parade tells them that they are people of value no different than straight people – regardless of who they are attracted to.
I get that. I fully understand the need for that kind of validation. It is beyond evident that this community is at great risk for depression and suicide. If one is an observant gay Jew, the suicide rate is even higher than it is in the general public! But at the same time I cannot approve of a parade that appears to celebrate the forbidden. Even if it is not an explicit part of the parade, there is an implicit message that not only is who we love not an issue so too is the way we love not an issue. Without making that distinction then by default - supporting a pride parade is tantamount to supporting sinful acts associated with being gay.
At the same time, I do not believe that it deserves the treatment it got from Irwin Benjamin in a Jewish Press article. Mr. Benjamin clearly does not grasp what is at stake. Nor does he really understand the problem. For him it is all about self control and asks ‘What are they really proud of in that parade?’
Which brings me to one of my Charedi heroes, Rabbi Yakov Horowitz. It is no secret that he is paying dearly for his involvement in the battle against sex abuse. He is currently being sued for defamation by a transplanted (from America to Israel) child sex abuser because he has warned the community in which that fellow now lives about him. That has not deterred Rabbi Horowitz from trying to tackle another injustice in the world of Orthodoxy – the treatment of gay Jews. Especially those who are nevertheless deeply committed to the Torah and Halacha.
In a letter to the editor, Rabbi Horowitz has responded to Mr. Benjamin’s article in the Jewish Press with the righteous indignation it deserves. He explains why in a public statement he just released. Here is what he said:
Over the past 18 months, since I posted this video (see below) of my response to a question about LGBTQ-in-the- frum -community at a Jewish Heritage Center panel discussion, I’ve been contacted by well over 100 LGBTQ people and their parents seeking guidance and assistance.
A year ago, my wife and I invited 10 LGBTQ men and women to our home for a private lunch meeting, in order to better understand the extraordinarily complex and multi-faceted issues and challenges they are facing.
My dear friends; these are our children from our homes. They are the children of your friends, your relatives, and distinguished members of your communities.
What alarms me most from that unforgettable meeting and from the interactions I’ve had with LGBTQ people, is the profound and deep alienation they feel from members of our community.
The stunning social-emotional toll this is taking on them is reflected in astaggering suicide rate among frum LGBTQ youth (the subtitle of this 2012 Jerusalem Post Article screams “Research shows 20% of Orthodox LGBTQ youth attempted suicide, compared to 3.5% rate for general youth population”).
On a very personal level, this is the third time in my adult life that I find myself alerting our community to an urgent, uncomfortable-to-discuss issue – in 1996 it was drop-out teens and eight years later it was the issue of child abuse. Only I’m finding this issue to be significantly more complicated than the previous two.
Over the past 23 years of dealing with these sensitive and complex issues, I’ve had the great zechus /privilege to seek the guidance of and work closely with our leading gedolim /sages and community leaders.
Once the magnitude of the LGBTQ issue became evident to me, I reached out again for guidance, and the clear message I received was that, because of the emotional health component, I should treat this as a matter of pikuach nefesh/life-threatening and do whatever I can to assist LGBTQ people and their family members.
Now, back to the article in the Jewish Press and my letter to the Editor : As I made clear in my letter, my objection had nothing to do with the discussion of the Gay Pride Parade, nor with the larger, communal LGBTQ issues, which I consider to be above my pay grade. Rather, it was an expression of my horror that breathtakingly cruel and insensitive language was needlessly used, basically comparing them to animals who have no sense of control.
Regardless of the nisyonos our children are facing, we must always treat them with kindness and compassion.
This is real. This is deadly. Your words matter.
I believe this says I all. I will only add the following. Where others do the talking, Rabbi Horowitz does the walking. He is even willing to put his own reputation on the line in order to help a fellow Jew struggling with a difficult issue that many others wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
I stand in awe of his dedication to ALL of Klal Yisroel. He is all about Emes - and doing the right thing. If everyone was like him, Moshiach would already be here.