Does Judaism accept same-sex behavior?

This is from a source I found on the net a few years back.. these are not my opinions, but I felt it was relevant since I'am a Jew myself... enjoy!  

General Reference (not clearly pro or con)     


A 2001 article in Moment Magazine, "The Gay Orthodox Underground," by Naomi Grossman, stated:

"[F]ew Orthodox rabbis have ever stood up and publicly addressed the issue [homosexuality] or provided any halachic (Jewish legal) parameters beyond the standard 'It is an abomination.' No rabbi wants to be seen as possibly condoning an act that has been outlawed by God in the Torah.

The marginalization of gays exists to a much lesser degree in Judaism's other denominations. As far back as 1977, Reform rabbis passed a resolution 'encourag[ing] legislation which decriminalizes homosexual acts between consenting adults and prohibits discrimination against them as persons.' Fourteen years later, the Conservative movement followed suit with similar resolutions.

Reform rabbis endorsed same-sex civil marriages in 1996, and the movement recently voted to allow rabbis to conduct same-sex marriages and to permit ordination for gay men and women. Reconstructionists admit homosexuals into their rabbinic and cantorial schools as well.

While the Conservative movement does not condone same-sex marriages or ordain gay men or women as rabbis, 'Congregations are encouraged to welcome and reach out to gay members,' according to Marianna Matt Newirth, Assistant Director of Media Relations at the Jewish Theological Seminary."
2001 Moment Magazine

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..> ..> PRO (YES)


Rabbi Harold Schulweis writes in his undated article, "A Second Look At Homosexuality," (retrieved 3/16/04) and published on his temple's website:

"The rabbis in the Talmudic era declared that two bachelors are permitted to sleep beneath the same blanket because Jews are not suspect of homosexuality (Kiddushin 82a)....

According to Jewish law, activities that are under compulsion or constraint, even if they are prohibited, are free of liability.... Scholars agree that the authors of the Bible and Talmud took their position on the issue of homosexuality on the assumption that homosexual behavior was an act of freedom of choice...the assumption of the ancients about the motivation of the homosexual was based on factual error....

Moreover, we are dealing with mounting evidence that there are genetic factors which play a large role, perhaps a determining role, in this behavior.

On both moral and Halachic grounds it is wrong to take one or two verses in the Bible, stripped of their historic context and devoid of medical knowledge, and apply them to punish innocent people who cannot deny their basic instincts, impulses and sexual attractions.

To inflict punishment upon the innocent violates the spirit and intent of Jewish law....Faith and religion are matters of choice. The non-Jew can freely become a Jew by choice. The non-Jew can convert, but the homosexual cannot convert his/her sexual orientation."
3/04 Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis


..> ..> CON (NO)


A 2001 article in Moment Magazine, "The Gay Orthodox Undergound" by Naomi Grossman,stated:

"The Torah strictly forbids homosexual sex, and rabbis have consistently upheld that prohibition through the ages. 'The Orthodox gay movement is organizing … around something that is unacceptable,' says Rabbi Barry Freundel of Kesher Israel, a modern Orthodox synagogue in Washington, DC. 'It's like saying we're a group of Orthodox Sabbath violators or Orthodox ham eaters.'

The prohibition against homosexual sex comes from Leviticus: 'Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence' (18:22). In biblical times, the punishment for violating that code was clear. 'If a man lies with a male as one lies with a woman, the two of them have done an abhorrent thing; they shall be put to death -— their bloodguilt is upon them' (Leviticus 20:13).

The Talmud extends the prohibition to lesbian sex (Sifrei 98). And the Shulchan Aruch, the standard code of Jewish law, reinforced the ban in the 16th century. 'In these generations,' the citation begins, 'when sexual licentiousness is rampant, a man should distance himself from lying together with another man.'

Indeed, throughout the ages, according to the Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, 'The Orthodox have continued to denounce homosexual sex while accepting the homosexual as a full, but sinning, Jew.'

Today most Orthodox rabbis would concur with that view."

2001 Moment Magazine