On Open-Mindedness

Imagine the following scenarios:

1. A man is telling you he has a big desire to say lashon hara. He works on himself constantly to overcome this yetzer hara, but at times he slips up. It is a constant struggle.
2. A single woman is telling you she has terrible trouble keeping shomeret laws, despite not immersing in a mikvah. She has slipped up as well. Now invert the situation for a single man, who has been with a woman who has not immersed. In each case, the perpetrator has not violated the law in quite a while, and constantly struggles to continue keeping shomer/shomeret laws and prays to Hashem for help in this endeavor.
3. A single man tells you he has great sexual desires for other men. He once kissed another man, but felt horrible guilt. He prays everyday to God to help him.

In terms of acceptability in Orthodox society, each case is less acceptable than the last, despite the Torah's harsh terms for violating nidah, just as it is harsh on male homosexual intercourse.* Yet while the person in the second scenario severely risks their chances of finding a good shidduch**, the person in the third scenario risks not being counted for a minyan and jeopardizing their siblings' shidduch chances as well.

This shows that the stigma against gay people can not be purely halachik. As further evidence: It is more unacceptable in Ortho Society (O.S.) to be lesbian than to be male and gay - which is perhaps why YU could find no lesbians to speak at the (in?)famous panel last week. Yet halachikly, its preferable to be lesbian, since it only violates a rabbinic commandment, whereas male homoesexual action violates a Torah commandment.

This reflects general society, where it was acceptable to be male and gay long before it was acceptable to be female and gay (if indeed, it is truly acceptable to be lesbian today outside of a fetishized hot-lesbian in a way that makes a guy fantasize about threesomes, a la Kate Perry), and lesbians have had to fight for their rights within the larger gay rights movement. This is especially so with the male gay rights movement in France in the 60s and early 70s, which largely ignored or denigrated women, including women who are attracted to women.

In general, I believe that OS's fear of gay people stems from assimilation and appropriation of modern secular values: Modern secular society is all about sex. It judges people - especially women - based on their sexual desirability and activity. OS also judges people by these standards, but instead of judging people by their engagement in successful sexual relationships, it judges them by their lack of sexual activity (shomerness, and tzniut, which is supposed to be a sign of shomerness but often isn't). Dressing in a tzanua manner and being shomer, and being straight, are the new hallmarks of religiosity - which is in it of itself extremely untzanua. How many times have you (if you are Ortho or datlash) been asked "Are you shomer/et?" by someone you barely know? It is considered acceptable that we bear the details of our sexual lives (or lack thereof) to near strangers, in order to prove our religiosity and shidduch-worthiness. Yet how often is one asked "Do you speak lashon hara often? Do you daven with kavanah? How much time a day do you spend studying Torah and what do you study?" - I'd venture to say not often. And while our struggles with other aspects of Judaism can be discussed publicly or on a first date, our struggles with the sexual part of Judaism must remain secret - unless we want to disparage our reputation.

This sex-centered view of religiosity is detrimental, because it takes the focus away from other aspects of Judaism that are important, and tells us that our hishtadlut should be focused on one area which, while a very important part of life (and something I would classify as a need, not a desire) is not the be-all-and-end-all of life or of our relationships with God.

God is the ultimate judge; it is our job to be merciful.***We should not judge people for being gay, because we all struggle with different part of Judaism, or for engaging in homosexual activities, because we all sin, and don't have the right to judge others for the sins that they commit.

By making gay people ostracized within OS, what we are doing is forcing people to choose 1. Closeted existence with halacha, with all of its psychological implication, which often lead people to sin ben adam lechaveiro, especially in their relationships with their parents 2. A closeted gay lifestyle, with a double-existence and its psychological implications 3. An openly gay lifestyle, devoid of halachik observance in all the other areas of Judaism

We are depriving people of: 1. Being openly gay without engaging in homosexual activity, while remaining part of O.S. 2. Being gay, but observing all the other halachot

The argument is if we are too compassionate, we take away social pressure to not engage in homosexual activity, thereby becoming responsible to a large segment of Jewry engaging in sin - but it is not our job to exert social pressure on people to obey the mitzvot. One observes the mitzvot because of her or his relationship with God. A religious Torah Jewish male will not simply jump into bed with another man - because he will not want to violate a deoraita law. Will a religious Jewish man maybe be more likely to give in to his desire after years of struggle thanks to OS's new open-ness? Maybe, maybe not. Will a formerly religious Jew who has had to leave OS because of his homosexual lifestyle come back to it now and start observing all the halachot not related to sexuality because of OS's new open-ness? Hopefully.

If we are to start not including gay people for minyan, because we need to exert social pressure on them, perhaps we should also start not counting lashon-hara speaking people or chutzpadik people in minyan, in order to exert social pressure on them. Signaling out the sexual sin for special treatment speaks to secular society's encroachment on OS. Also, lashon harah violated the Torah commandment of "viahavta lireecha kamocha" and chutzpa violates the Torah commandment of kibud av vaem. (In case you wanted to engage in the deoraita vs drabannan argument - which still would not explain why gay people who are not acting on their desires, therefore not sinning, fear being excluded from minyan.)

Two final points: 1. I was not at YU's panel. But I do think that it is important to talk about issues, and not sweep them under the carpet, even if these conversations are uncomfortable or even involve staring apikorsut in the face and rejecting it. (This is not to say that I think the YU panel involved apikorsut.) Judaism's ability to engage with difficult issues is a sign of strength; refusing to engage is a chilul Hashem because it implies that Judaism does not have the answers. 2. I think it is important to separate between halacha and ethics, as Yehsayahu Liebowitz did. Ethics are codes of human morality, and to equate that with halacha is to deny that halacha is above humans, and their rationality and ethical codes. This means that even though war against Amalek**** may violate human ethics, it is a halachik obligation. But it also means that while engaging in homosexuality is a halachik violation, it is not a violation of ethics, and we do not have a right to condemn it as such.

If anyone reading this is homosexual, bi, etc., Remember: You are not alone.