GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

A woman wrote me yesterday reacting to my writing on gay marriage by recommending I visit jonahweb.org, a Jewish “ex-gay” Web site. She says I am “in denial” about the fact that homosexuality is “preventable and treatable.”

The funny thing is, based on the time she sent the note and the time zone she lives in, it is clear this Jewish woman wrote me on Shabbat. Indeed, a lot of Jewish advocates of the “ex-gay” approach to homosexuality openly violate major Jewish laws. And jonahweb.org promotes far more Christian ideas about homosexuality than Jewish ones. These people who have the chutzpah to push LGBT Jews (some of us quite observant) to follow their non-Jewish ideas about sexuality in the name of Judaism should instead focus their energies on their own observance of things like Shabbat, keeping kosher, and daily prayer. If an Orthodox Jew wants to tell me my observance of Jewish law in the areas of family and bedroom life is not sufficient, I’m happy to listen to him or her. I don’t see why I should take these other amei ha’aretz and m’challelei Shabbos (Jewishly ignorant Sabbath-breakers) seriously.

I haven’t checked with a rabbi on this, but I’m pretty sure that if my correspondent had to pick one Jewish law to violate, Judaism would prefer it if she engaged in lesbian sex rather than send me an E-mail on Shabbat. Yet she tells me in the name of Judaism that “ex-gay” is the way to go.

Oy vey.