Rabbi Panel Approves Same-Sex Ceremonies

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By Alan CoopermanWashington Post Staff WriterWednesday, December 6, 2006; 4:42 PM

NEW YORK, Dec. 6 -- A panel of rabbis opened the way Wednesday to allow same-sex commitment ceremonies and the ordination of gays within Conservative Judaism, which occupies a difficult middle ground between orthodoxy and liberalism in American Judaism.
The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards committee accepted three teshuvot, or answers, to the question of whether Jewish law permits homosexual sex. Two of the answers uphold the status quo, which forbids homosexuality. But one of them allows ordination of gay men and lesbians and same-sex ceremonies while maintaining a ban on anal sex.
Four of the committee's 25 members resigned in protest of the decision.
It takes the votes of just six of the panel's 25 members to declare an answer to be valid -- meaning that it is a well-founded interpretation of Jewish law, not that it is the only legitimate interpretation. As Wednesday's vote made clear, it is possible to approve contradictory answers.
Because the papers are contradictory it will be up to individual rabbis and seminaries to decide what to do. Some Conservative Jewish leaders predicted that some rabbis will continue to refuse to allow same sex ceremonies and they said no rabbi would be required to perform them.
The paper that allows for the ordination of gays and performance of same sex ceremonies was written by three rabbis -- Elliot Dorff, of Los Angeles; Daniel Nevins, of Farmington Hills, Mich.; and Avram Reisner, of Baltimore.
There are four main Conservative Jewish seminaries. One of them, the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, is expected to begin ordaining gays in the near future. The movement's flagship seminary, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, is likely to take more time. Its new chancellor Arnold Eisen, has said he personally favors the change, but will allow the entire faculty to debate and vote on a recommendation. Two other seminaries, in Israel and Argentina, are more traditional in their outlook and may adopt the change slowly, if at all.