Same-sex marriage rules OK'd

by David Holzel
Senior Writer

Since the Conservative movement declared its approval of "committed and loving relationships for gay and lesbian Jews" six years ago, its rabbis have had to improvise same-sex wedding ceremonies with no guidance from the movement.

"I had to reinvent some things," Rabbi Ethan Seidel, of Tifereth Israel Congregation in Washington, said of the time he performed a same-sex marriage. "I didn't really have a lot of guidelines."

That is about to change. Last week, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the movement's Rabbinical Assembly - affirming that same-sex marriages have "the same sense of holiness and joy as that expressed in heterosexual marriages" - established rituals for same-sex wedding ceremonies.

"This is an important moment for the movement," said Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal of Shaare Torah in Gaithersburg. "It helps our movement express its values in a positive way."

Last week's position paper, adopted by a vote of 13-0, with one abstention, outlines two possible marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. It acknowledges that "same-sex intimate relationships are comprehensively banned by classical rabbinic law," or Halacha.

But, the decision said, "for observant gay and lesbian Jews who would otherwise be condemned to a life of celibacy or secrecy, their human dignity requires suspension of the rabbinic level prohibitions."

The unanimous vote showed "that there was strong sentiment that the movement to support people in the field about how to consecrate the relationship of two loving individuals who are gay," said Rabbi Ari Sunshine, of B'nai Shalom of Olney.

For gay Jews, he said, the guidelines "say we're serious about making room in our tradition for sanctifying their relationship."

The paper's authors, Rabbis Elliot Dorff, Daniel Nevins and Avram Reisner, proposed two possible ceremonies that incorporate what they deem to be the four key elements of a Jewish wedding: welcoming the couple, symbols of celebration, a document of covenant and blessings thanking God.

One ceremony hews closely to the traditional Jewish wedding, making changes in the language and the blessings based on the couple's gender and sexuality.

The other departs from that ceremony, with three blessings, for example, instead of the traditional seven.

The Conservative decision did not call same-sex marriages kiddushin, the traditional Jewish legal term for marriage, because that act of consecration is nonegalitarian and gender-specific. In the traditional kiddushin ceremony, a pair of blessings is recited and the bridegroom gives his bride a ring, proclaiming that he is marrying his bride "according to the laws of Moses and Israel."

Such a ceremony would be inappropriate for same-sex ceremonies, the Conservative rabbis suggested in their position paper. They also noted that the use of kiddushin opens the door to divorce disputes in which a husband may deny his wife a religious writ of divorce, or get - something that "has been the source of great suffering in many Jewish communities."

The wedding templates offer reassurance "that I'll have guidance in helping gay couples when they come to me," Blumenthal said.

Like Blumenthal, Rabbi Jonathan Maltzman, of Kol Shalom in Rockville, has not performed a same-sex ceremony. Now, with the guidelines, "I believe there will be more requests," he said.

This is the next step in the process of bringing about the full inclusion of LGBT Jews," said Rabbi Aaron Weininger, using the acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. "Visibility of LGBT people as individuals and couples makes us stronger as a Jewish community."

The first openly gay student admitted to the rabbinical school at the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary, Weininger received his rabbinic ordination last month. He was consulted during the composition of last week's paper.

Rabbi Menachem Creditor, who has been performing same-sex marriages since 2002 - four years before the movement permitted them - said that Jewish law is flexible, and should respond to changes within the Jewish community.

"Modern Halacha has always seen the Torah as its center, but not any one meaning as the final interpretation," said Creditor, the rabbi of Berkeley's Congregation Netivot Shalom. "There is a growing understanding from within Conservative Jews that our responsibility is to steward our community with clarity. Conservative Judaism believes Halacha changes when it must."

Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, who heads the LGBT Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York, said that these new guidelines represent a major step forward in Conservative Judaism's sensitivity toward the LGBT community.

"We can't be held hostage to the radical right wing of the Jewish world," said Kleinbaum, who was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. "The Conservative movement is rejecting religion based on bigotry."

While the 2006 decision to ordain gay and lesbian rabbis and accept gay couples was controversial, even Rabbi Joel Roth, who resigned from the law committee in the wake of that decision, called this latest responsum "a very fine thing."

"The fact that they created the ceremony is five or six years overdue," he said. "In the Conservative movement as it exists, the classical position [of forbidding gay relations] is considered nonnormative."

The Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis endorsed Jewish gay marriage in the late 1990s while acknowledging the right of rabbis to choose whether to officiate at same-sex ceremonies. Reconstructionist rabbis also may officiate at same-sex ceremonies. The Orthodox movement does not allow gay marriage.

Rabbi Gerald Skolnik, the president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said that the movement's constituency will determine its priorities.

"Ultimately," he said, "the Jewish people have a tendency of deciding what the next item on the agenda will be."