You can be Beckham's friend if you'd like......
Wow. All I need is a Coldplay cd and then I'll really be gay. Which reminds me, did anyone happen to see the New York Times article on conservative Jews voting to allow gay marriage? Interesting story. Here are some highlights from it:
A committee of Jewish legal experts who set policy for Conservative Judaism will consider whether to lift their movement's ban on gay rabbis and same-sex unions.
Since then, Conservative Jewish leaders say, they have watched as relatives, congregation members and even fellow rabbis publicly revealed their homosexuality. Students at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, the movement's flagship, began wearing buttons saying "Ordination Regardless of Orientation." Rabbis performed same-sex commitment ceremonies despite the ban.
The direction taken by Conservative Jews, who occupy the centrist position in Judaism between the more liberal Reform and the more strict Orthodox, will be closely watched at a time when many Christian denominations are torn over the same issue. Conservative Judaism claims to distinguish itself by adhering to Jewish law and tradition, or halacha, while bending to accommodate modern conditions.
"There are so many laws in the Torah about sexual behavior that we choose to ignore, so when we zero in on this one, I have to wonder what's really behind it," Rabbi Visotzky said.
The ban on homosexuality is based on Leviticus 18:22, which says, "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination," and a similar verse in Leviticus 20:13.
The law committee now has four legal opinions on the table. Although the reasoning in each is different and complex, two opinions essentially oppose any change to the current law disapproving of homosexuality, and one advocates overturning the law.
A fourth, authored by Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, rector and a professor of philosophy at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, argues that the passages in Leviticus refer only to a prohibition on anal sex and that homosexual relationships, rabbis and marriage ceremonies are permissible.
