Luke Ford

If elites can convince much of the world to celebrate same-sex marriage, then is there nothing they can’t do in shifting basic moral values.

Does anyone seriously think that if elites were against same-sex marriage, we would have same-sex marriage?

Jews provide most of the funding for the Democrats, much of the funding for the Republicans, we dominate media and finance, and much of academia and law. We helpset the agenda in America. For instance, we got the country to provide Israel with over $100 billion in aid.

Traditional Judaism is 100% against gay marriage, but only about 12% of American Jews are Orthodox, and most of the rest of Jewry not to mind same-sex marriage.

Are there any significant differences in the same-sex marriage issue between Jewish elites and non-Jewish elites?

Jay Michaelson write for the Forward June 26, 2015:

One of the key points in today’s Supreme Court decision overturning state bans on same-sex marriage is that religious and civil marriage, like church and state, are separate.
And yet, the court’s opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, is itself prophetic in its tone. For the 80% of American Jews who support same-sex marriage, it is a clarion call to our better natures:
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

This is profound spiritual writing, even if it is found in a secular Supreme Court opinion. It seems to understand the humanity of same-sex couples, and the historical import of this 5-4 decision.
In yet another of his childish, intemperate dissents, Justice Antonin Scalia called Kennedy’s language “a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic.” Scalia does have a point, if judicial opinions are meant to be dry, brittle, legalistic documents that never discuss the real lives they affect – like his very dissent.
But as many American Jews enter Pride Shabbat this week, we do so with a text that, while secular in nature, nonetheless takes the moral high ground.
Kennedy outlined four principles, in particular, which color marriage as a fundamental right.
First, “the nature of marriage,” Kennedy wrote, “is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation.”
Second, perhaps echoing Genesis 2:18’s principle that it is not good for the human being alone, Kennedy wrote that “Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there. It offers the hope of companionship and understanding and assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other.”
“A third basis for protecting the right to marry,” Kennedy continued, “is that it safeguards children and families and thus draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education.” While this is usually a conservative talking point, Kennedy observed that “as all parties agree, many same-sex couples provide loving and nurturing homes to their children, whether biological or adopted.”
Thus, “excluding same-sex couples from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser.”
This is a neat, and truthful, inversion of the conservative claim that procreation is the essence of marriage. That is false, according to Genesis, Jewish law, and centuries of lived experience. Not only are many heterosexual marriages childless, happy, and complete, but as Justice Kennedy notes, many same-sex ones bring children into the world, via adoption, IVF, surrogacy, or other means.
Yes, such methods may not seem as “natural” as the birds and the bees. But then again, modern medicine isn’t “natural” either, yet we use it all the time to save and enrich our lives.
Fourth, Kennedy continued, “As the State itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that gays and lesbians are unequal in important respects. It demeans gays and lesbians for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation’s society. Same-sex couples, too, may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage and seek fulfillment in its highest meaning.”
These four principles – the values marriage promotes, its unique bond of companionship, its connection to child-rearing, and the imprimatur of the state – constitute the reasons, according to the Supreme Court, that marriage is a fundamental right, regardless of sexual orientation.

From JTA June 26, 2015:

(JTA) — How often do you get the opportunity to pack “109 years,” #LoveWins and the rainbow colors into 140 characters?
That’s how the American Jewish Committee celebrated the Supreme Court ruling Friday extending marriage rights to gays throughout the United States.
“For 109 years AJC has stood for liberty and human rights,” its tweet said. “Today is a happy day for that proud tradition ‪#LoveWins.” It was punctuated with a heart emoticon splashed orange, yellow, green blue and purple – the gay pride colors.

For 109 years AJC has stood for liberty and human rights. Today is a happy day for that proud tradition
#LoveWinspic.twitter.com/8PDsS5cLFl
— AJC (@AJCGlobal) June 26, 2015

The contrast between an organization founded at the launch of the last century celebrating the rights embraced by Americans only at the launch of this one was emblematic of the glee with which much of the Jewish establishment reacted to the ruling.

The Anti-Defamation League, in its own tweet, left out its age (102) but also got in the hashtag, #LoveWins, and that funny little heart.

This is a great day for Civil Rights! Happy Pride!
#MarriageEquality
for all.
http://t.co/0ay4Enf9ma#LoveWinspic.twitter.com/7FgAzVs1ND
— ADL (@ADL_National) June 26, 2015

Thirteen Jewish groups, among them organizations representing the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative streams, were among the 25 joining the amicus brief the ADL filed in Obergefell v. Hodges.

The preeminence of Jewish groups among those backing the litigants was not a surprise. In recent decades, much of the Jewish establishment has embraced gay marriage as a right equivalent to the others it has advocated, including racial equality, religious freedoms and rights for women.

Multiple groups, in their statements, cited the passage in Genesis that states humans were created “in the image of God,” which has for decades been used by Jewish civil rights groups to explain their activism.

“Jewish tradition reminds us that we were all created equally, b’tzelem Elohim, in the ‘image of God’ (Genesis 1:27), and also shows us that marriage is a sacred responsibility, not only between the partners, but also between the couple and the larger community,” the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly said in a statement.

Groups also were looking to next steps in advancing LGBT rights, including in the workplace.

“You can now legally marry in all 50 states and put your wedding on your desk and be fired and have no recourse in the federal courts,” Rabbi Jonah Pesner, who directs the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, told JTA in an interview.

“We hope this will energize and inspire a bipartisan effort to end discrimination in the work place,” he said, specifying the “T” in LGBT – the transgendered. “People should not be discriminated in the workplace because of expression of gender.”

The notion that the decision would propel a broader debate about LGBT rights concerned the Orthodox Union, which in a carefully worded statement noted that it adhered to the traditional definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, but also recognized “that no religion has the right to dictate its beliefs to the entire body politic.”

The OU, like other more conservative religious groups, was wary of new liberties that could infringe on its ability to hire officials who hew to their belief systems.

“Will the laws implementing today’s ruling and other expansions of civil rights for LGBT Americans contain appropriate accommodations and exemptions for institutions and individuals who abide by religious teachings that limit their ability to support same-sex relationships?” the group said in its statement.

The OU did not file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case. Agudath Israel of America did, opposing the gay marriage side.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the consensus-driven public policy umbrella, recognized sensitivities on both sides in its statement.

“We call for sensitivity and civility in this debate, understanding that the vast majority on all sides are people of good will,” it said. “Adjusting to change is not always easy or swift.”

SCOTUS Marriage Equality

Sam Schulman writes in 2014:

In the mid-20th century, the American Jewish community distinguished itself for the zeal of its commitment to the cause of civil rights. Recently, American Jews have been no less zealous in behalf of another cause that many have likened to its predecessor. This is the movement to advocate, create, and legalize the institution of gay marriage.

Is that a surprise? That American Jews as individuals strongly support gay marriage should come as news to no one. What may be surprising is how much more avidly they support it than do non-Jewish Americans of the same socio-economic profile: educated, affluent, politically liberal. In 2010, the last time the Pew Research Center broke out separate opinion numbers for Jews, over three-quarters supported gay marriage, scoring eight points higher on this issue than liberals in general and 27 points higher than white mainline Protestants. Only the small group of avowed atheists believe more devoutly in gay marriage than do Jews. In a related datum, American Jewish attitudes toward homosexuality itself have long tracked markedly more positive than the attitudes of Americans in general.

Even measured against the standard of other Jewish enthusiasms, gay marriage is remarkable. In 2008, more of California’s Jews voted against Proposition 8, an anti-gay-marriage amendment, than voted for Barack Obama, who happened to be running for President on the same day. As early as 2000, the Reform movement, the largest Jewish religious denomination, authorized its rabbis, at their discretion, to “officiate at same-sex unions [of gay Jewish couples] through appropriate Jewish ritual.” The Conservative movement, the second largest denomination, has followed suit and in some respects, as we shall see, gone farther.

That an American Jew of any denomination, or of none, is significantly more likely to approve of gay marriage than are American liberals in general raises the question of whether there might be something peculiarly Jewish propelling this disposition: some element in American Jewish culture, or in the Jewish religious tradition, or in the Jewish soul or genotype.

From the Jerusalem Post June 28, 2015:

Lutheran pastor says Jews to blame for destroying Christian values after US approves gay marriage

The pastor insists that Jewish influence and money were being used to destroy Christian culture and values globally.

Mark Dankof, a Lutheran pastor and political activist, declared the Jews to blame for the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday which declared any law to ban gay marriage unconstitutional.

Speaking to reporters from Iran’s Press TV, Dankof insisted that Jewish influence and money were being used to destroy Christian culture and values globally.

“It should not be ignored that the victories for abortion on demand and LGBT rights are reflective of the disproportionate influence of Jewish power, money, and activism in the United States,” he declared.

“The key Jewish role played in the mainstreaming of abortion, LGBT, and pornography in the United States may be documented in Google search, especially in looking at the Frankfurt School and its Institute for Social Research,” added Dankof.

Dankof declared that Russian President Vladamir Putin is one of few national leaders who recognize the threat of Jewish power.

“I believe Mr. Putin is a key ingredient in destroying this global threat, and restoring cultural integrity and national sovereignty to his country, and providing a model for defeating the Zionist agenda globally,” he concluded.

Regarding the article below, Ted writes: “Luke, the Jewish population in the US is dominated by European, Jews, who tend to be secular/non-observant and upper class professionals (maybe 60-70% of US Jews). By contrast, secular European Jews (non-Russian) make up around 30% of the Israeli population. This article (which I haven’t clicked on) compares two different populations.”