there was a wedding announcement placed in a new jersey jewish newspaper for a gay couple. the newspaper received much outrage from the large orthodox community who read this newspaper. the paper decided not to run any more of these announcements. the jewish week states that a lot of conservative and reform jews are outraged. they think this is bigoted. i find this hilarious. this is not bigoted. the prohibition against performing gay acts is against the torah whether or not you agree with it . even if you identify yourself with a stream of judaism that performs gay marriages the ban is still part of the torah. furthermore the u.s. military in 2010 still cant figure out its gays in the military stand , so why would you think that torah judaism would somehow embrace gays? according to the jewish week even the new york times did not include gay marriage announcements until 2002. this was not even as far back as 9/11! gays haven't been considered as mainstream secular society for all that long. for all folks who are confused over the issue gay bashing is not equal to anti semitism. being gay is a sexual orientation not a religion. i do feel bad for orthodox jewish gay people because its something that wont be accepted in mainstream orthodox jewish society even if they are halachicly observant in all other areas.
personally i think that is radically refreshing that this new jersey jewish newspaper made the stand that it has. they usually bow to the majority of the reform , conservative or secular jew.
because society is so warped i would not ban or refuse to read a jewish community newspaper because it listed gay wedding announcements. torah judaism is just so over to most jews that you kind of accept the fact that a jewish community will list wedding announcements of jews who are inter marrying , gay jews and non-kosher restaurants. its just that i find it so cool that a jewish newspaper would actually challenge this moral downturn in judaism and actually say that they wont continue to list such announcements because it rattles the sensibilities of frum jews.
3 comments:
I have to take issue with you on this one, FF. I don't think that the newspaper made its decision on halakhic grounds. What the halakhah is is not in doubt. But you seem to be saying, among other things, that newspapers should not bow to the majority. But in Teaneck, the Orthodox ARE the majority, and that's why the newspaper apologized for the announcement in the first place. It was a question of being afraid of boycotts and losing ad dollars. If you are usually against the majority (within Jewish life, usually non-Orthodox Jews) using its power to override the wishes of the minority (usually Orthodox Jews), then you should be against it in this case, too, even though the shoe is on the other foot. And, regardless of the halakhah, how does it harm you or any other Orthodox Jew to see such an announcement in a newspaper?
of course its all about the money. this is why the jewish newspapers always are bowing to the majority be it orthodox or non-orthodox. the truth is the jewish community newspaper from the midwestern city i grew up in has included gay wedding announcements for a quite awhile . i dont remember how long. there have not been that many of them anyway just because compared to the heterosexual wedding announcements there arent as many of the gay wedding announcements. i would read the newspaper anyway, but i also dont totally agree with their inclusion. but no, i would not boycott the paper either, because the majority is usually not in agreement with what i think anyway and yes this is how these jewish community newspapers work. they include ads for trief resteraunts as well which i dont agree with. and i personally wouldnt boycott the jewish newpapers that include them, but i dont think this is right either.
on the flip side , i dont agree with hamodia for not including photos of women which does offend me, but i dont read that paper because its of no interest to me. even if there were photos of women in it i wouldnt read it.
i simply find it interesting that this happend in this jewish community newspaper when by and large its usually the opposite, even if its all about the money.
that said, i would probably have to concede that it is probably better for the jewish community newspapers to be more liberal {even if it means including gay wedding announcements) because i dont think that the far right is doing any better at striking the right balance(for example : the conversion fiasco and the divorce fiasco that are going on in israel due to the far right )
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