In the early 1970s, while I was CEO of the Seagram Company, public dialogue about gay rights was largely nonexistent in corporate America. Social discourse had not yet even evolved into the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ethos that dominated the following decades. Homosexuality was simply not discussed and therefore, by implication, was shameful.
Wide-eyed and smiley, Elay-Gabriel seems utterly unaffected by the French media’s sudden interest in him.
Last year, I officiated at the first same-sex wedding in the 145-year history of my synagogue. For a Conservative congregation, this was quite a break with tradition.
The American Modern Orthodox community has just entered uncharted territory. Last week, our largest rabbinic organization, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) formally withdrew its support of JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality).
An Israeli court has awarded the country\’s first divorce to a gay couple, which experts called an ironic milestone since same-sex marriages cannot be legally conducted in the Jewish state.
A landmark vote last week by the Conservative movement’s rabbinic committee has established rituals for same-sex wedding ceremonies, affirming that same-sex marriages have “the same sense of holiness and joy as that expressed in heterosexual marriages.”
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, \”Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.\” Since the May 8 vote to approve North Carolina\’s Amendment One referendum, which constitutionally bars the state from recognizing as legal any marriage other than that of a man to a woman, his words still ring true. Our march toward justice for all citizens of North Carolina, for all God’s children, is incomplete.
Two elderly Jewish women were the first same-sex couple to marry in New York City.
While voting to keep intact the marriages of approximately 18,000 Californians, including many Jewish couples, the California Supreme Court voted today to uphold Proposition 8, an initiative that amended California\’s Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Another chapter in the longer story of same-gender marriage in California has ended, and yet another is already beginning. Here in Los Angeles County, demonstrations against the ban are already underway in Leimert Park and more are planned for East Los Angeles and West Hollywood. Activists on both sides of the issue are mobilizing in anticipation of another ballot initiative in 2010 or 2012.
Maybe gay marriage is just what the world needs to make weddings sane.
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