GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

Something bothered me about the Los Angeles Jewish Journal’s April 11 feature story on Jews for Marriage Equality’s close working relationship with two of the main plaintiffs in California’s big Supreme Court case on same-sex marriage. While the story identified one of the women, Robin Tyler, as Jewish, the reporter, Julie Gruenbaum Fax, was silent on the religion of the other woman.

Curious, I wrote Steve Krantz, the group’s president, and Tyler herself, with whom I used to work, to inquire on Diane’s religion. No answer. I wrote each again. Still no answer. Finally, I E-mailed the pair’s smart, outspoken feminist lawyer, Gloria Allred, and twelve minutes later I had my answer: Olson is not in fact Jewish, though she wants to marry in a Jewish ceremony. (Fax says she knew Olson wasn’t Jewish but did not consider that fact “relevant.”)

One problem: none of the three major Jewish religious movements approves of a Jewish ceremony to “marry” Olson and Tyler. Orthodox and Conservative Judaism do not believe in interfaith marriages of any gender combination, and even Reform Judaism, in its famous “Greenboro resolution” supported same-sex religious ceremonies only for all-Jewish relationships.

Even some supporters of Jews for Marriage Equality say the group’s promotion of Tyler and Olson as the group’s poster-child couple is a step too far. For example, Rabbi Marvin Goodman, executive director of the Northern California Board of Rabbis, and a Conservative rabbi who has endorsed Jews for Marriage Equality said that any union between Olson and Tyler is “not a Jewish marriage….a Jewish marriage needs to be between two Jews. Whatever gender they are is a whole other issue.” Goodman said he does not regret endorsing the group, but would have preferred if he had been given a chance to “opt out” of the group’s promotion of Olson and Tyler’s quest for marriage.

Of course, many rabbis may think Olson and Tyler can never have a Jewish marriage without conversion, but still support civil marriage equality for them. And that’s fine. My point is just that this more evidence that many, many supporters of redefining marriage have no idea what marriage is – in this case no idea what a Jewish marriage is. That smart Conservative rabbis like Elliot Dorff, Ed Feinstein, and Menachem Creditor can enthusiastically support a Jewish group that spotlights a couple that even they no doubt would refuse to “marry” is quite troubling.

There certainly is a coherent, consistent attitude toward marriage that suggests we should throw out all the rules and let anybody marry anybody. But I happen to reject that attitude, and anyone else who rejects it would be smart to insist that any changes to marriage in our society happen slowly and carefully, if at all.