Allan Nadler writes in the Forward: "In addition to Feldman, one is reminded of, say, journalist Andrew Sullivan’s sad mewing about the Catholic Church’s rejection of his choice to live, and advocate for, an openly gay life. Closer to home, there are also the good folks at a new rabbinical school in Manhattan that proudly promotes its “open” alternative to mainstream Modern Orthodoxy, choosing at its benefit dinners publicly to vilify the latter’s flagship institution, Yeshiva University, only to then complain bitterly that the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America refuses to recognize the credentials of its graduates."
Yaakov posts: "It would have made more sense for Dr. Nadler to point to the publicizing in a YCT journal of Rabbi Orlow’s remarks about his gay haggadah or to point to the fact that many YCT students daven at minyanim where women are called to the Torah. Whether gay haggadot or mixed keriah minyanim are right or wrong is not the issue. The issue is whether a yeshiva that endorses or, at the very least, tolerates such activities could expect the RCA to accept its graduates. Nonetheless, I think we would all agree that writing a gay haggadah, giving a woman an aliya, having a spouse who wears a talit (as do some YCT students), and even davening at a fully egalitarian minyan (as do one or two YCT students and graduates) is very different than intermarrying."
Anon responds: "Rabbi Orlow did not write the haggadah. It was not "his" gay haggadah (I bet his wife and kids would be pretty shocked if it was!) As the Hillel rabbi at Washington U. he assisted students in creating something that they wanted to do, and as the rabbi he helped them explore Jewish texts that were relevant to them. If this is a problem for people, that’s fine. But it is outright slander to say that he "wrote a gay haggadah.""
