There’s nothing in the Jewish tradition that says Jews should fight for gay rights, but Jews, more than any other ethnic or religious group, have been behind the push for gay rights. Why? Because leading Jewish organizations such as the ADL sense that Jews are safer in a fractious cosmopolitan Gentile society than in a cohesive nationalist Gentile society.
Of the four panelists, Marnin, ADL associate director of legal affairs, was one of two Jewish community members to participate in “Coming Out to Your Jewish/Black/Asian/Latino Family: Being LGBT and a Minority in Los Angeles,” held May 20 at Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Koreatown and organized by the ADL’s Latino Jewish Roundtable and Asian Jewish Initiative. The other was Gamal Palmer, senior director of the Community Leadership Institute (CLI) at The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, who said he is Jewish and Native American and identified as “non-hetero.” He said coming to terms with his religious identity has been as much a struggle as reconciling with his gender identity.
“My first coming-out story was that I’m now Jewish,” Palmer said during the panel, which attracted approximately 75 people.
When the event’s moderator, ADL
Regional Director Amanda Susskind, asked Palmer to elaborate on the “non-hetero” label, Palmer said that he describes himself as such to prevent people from putting him in a box.
The other participants were Eileen Ma, who hails from a Pacific Islander family and is executive director of Asians and Pacific Islanders for LGBT Equality, and actor and Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation national spokesperson Wilson Cruz, who is Latino.
Orthodox Jews, particularly haredi Jews, however, are less likely than non-Orthodox Jews to participate in these radical movements.
Tribes, for instance, may find it in their interest to promote tribal rights, gay rights, and the like not because they inherently believe in such things (they may hate such things for themselves), but because a society with these rights in abundance is likely to be more hospitable to tribes.
