Civil Unns by Another Name: An Eastern Orthodox Defense of Gay Marriage | HuffPost Relign

orthodox gay marriage

Rabbi Arele Harel offers an unnventnal solutn for Orthodox Jewish gay men who want to raise a nventnal fay: He fix them up wh Orthodox lbians.

Contents:

DO THE ORTHODOX CHURCH ACCEPT GAY MARRIAGE AND WHY?

The bt place to accs the views, qutns, prejudic and challeng of the World is, I believe, the office water-oler.  The next bt plac would be the Huffgton Post and (for Canadians), the CBC.  The water-oler however retas s pri of place as the se more often vised by the mon man who, if he retas his mon sense, tends to avoid the Huffgton Post and the CBC.  Anyway, was at the office water-oler that the mon man ( this se, a woman) was exprsg the mon view on gay marriage, and askg wh some anger, “If two guys love each other, why n’t they get married?”  The anger acpanyg the qutn dited that the speaker thought that the tradnal prohibn of gay marriage was morally abhorrent (my phrase, not hers), and she was reactg angrily, I spect, bee she discerned the opposn to gay marriage jt one more wretched example of how those wretched Christians are wretchedly imposg their narrow, irratnal, bigoted and wretched views on the rt of .  In the old days, we wretched Christians were blamed for ctuo i (what else would all that secret talk about “the Kiss” and “brothers and sisters” mean?),… * orthodox gay marriage *

For example, the Greek Orthodox Archdce lists homosexualy bi fornitn, adultery, abortn and abive sexual behavr as “immoral and appropriate forms of behavr and of themselv, and also bee they attack the stutn of marriage and the fay. “Paradoxilly, the more a gay person liv a life parallel to his/her straight peers, mted partnership and raisg children, the more acceptance appears to wane, ” the study reported. Acrdg to this article om the Antchian Orthodox Christian Archdce of North Ameri, marriage should be rerved for a man wh a woman, and stggle wh homosexual sir n have benef to a person's spirual growth.

This post is an example of gay marriage ceremony wh Orthodox Church tradns, but mak clear that was not performed a non-Orthodox church buildg, and the church's webse nfirms that the officiatg pastor was not Orthodox. Anyway, was at the office water-oler that the mon man ( this se, a woman) was exprsg the mon view on gay marriage, and askg wh some anger, “If two guys love each other, why n’t they get married?

WHAT’S WRONG WH GAY MARRIAGE?

” The anger acpanyg the qutn dited that the speaker thought that the tradnal prohibn of gay marriage was morally abhorrent (my phrase, not hers), and she was reactg angrily, I spect, bee she discerned the opposn to gay marriage jt one more wretched example of how those wretched Christians are wretchedly imposg their narrow, irratnal, bigoted and wretched views on the rt of . ) Now we wretched Christians are blamed for the s—rapidly beg the hate crime—of “homophobia”, which is apparently fed as any dissent om the secular view that homosexual orientatn and life-style are equally on par wh heterosexual orientatn and life-style. Ancient people (that is, earlier than 1960), be they Christian, Jewish, Mlim or pagan, would have regard the phrase “homosexual marriage” as sentially oxymoronic, a ntradictn terms.

Pagans such as those livg the Roman Empire the time of Christ generally had no problem wh homosexualy (word had that even Socrat uld swg both ways), but they separated entirely om marriage. It is therefore difficult to answer the qutn, “what’s wrong wh gay marriage” bee we have fotten what marriage is, and we have fotten this bee we live a culture of ntraceptn, one which has pretty much sunred sexual activy om s ual rult, which is procreatn. Children raised such an environment will reta a skewed unrstandg of human nature—one which sunrs procreatn om the sence of marriage and which remak the ncepts of masculy and femy acrdg to utterly new (and untried) nons of the brave new homosexual world.

This do not mean, of urse, that if society allows Gay Marriage, and a jtice of the peace or some liberal clergy pronounce them “man and spoe” then the wheels will fall off wtern civilizatn by a week next Thursday. This is not the se for adoptn on the part of ‘straight’ upl; is only accintally pennt upon others, whereas the se of homosexual upl is pennt upon others necsarily and sentially.

GAY MARRIAGE AND EASTERN ORTHODOXY

In rponse to the Supreme Court’s lg favor of marriage equaly, the Unn of Orthodox Congregatns released a statement, sayg, “We reerate the historil posn of the Jewish fah, enunciated unequivolly our Bible, Talmud and Cos, which forbids homosexual relatnships and nmns the stutnalizatn of such relatnships as marriag.

CIVIL UNNS BY ANOTHER NAME: AN EASTERN ORTHODOX DEFENSE OF GAY MARRIAGE

I suggt that although our llg as Christians is not to force everyone to act ways nsistent wh Christian moraly, the move to legalize gay “marriage” reprents a public threat that, the name of Christian chary, should be risted. It is te that many people do not realize how same-sex “marriage” will lead to the persecutn of Christians, but the article Why Gay ‘Marriage’ is a Public Threat (part 2), I have monstrated why this is not an empty ncern.

In the se of gay marriage, an implic nomalism is seen the turn om teleology towards a type of dive nstctnism, which ethics are rced to a petn creatn between the wills of both God and man. In Gay Marriage and Creatnal Realism, I have tried to monstrate that once a nomalist amework is operatnal (even on an implic level), all we n do is retreat om the public nversatn, or else make a nuisance of ourselv by tryg to enter the public nversatn armed only wh handfuls of Scripture referenc. A repentant, stgglg homosexual who reas om homosexual acts n be received to the church after the ual urse of stctn, but he or she would do bt to keep this matter the nfsnal, jt as is mon wh every other s.

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS WHO STRONGLY FAVOR OR FAVOR GAY MARRIAGE

It’s not jt homosexualy; the Orthodox Church oppos today’s cultural permissivens the area of sexualy generally, pecially wh regard to habatn, promiscuy, and var forms of eroticism.

A TERRIBLE SERMON: PATRIARCH OF MOSW BLS “METAPHYSIL” WAR AGAST THE “WORLD OF GAY PRIS”

The liberal Jewish movements have unrgone dramatic shifts their approach to gay, lbian and transgenr Jews the past two s, but among the Orthodox the chang have been far ls dramatic — and many quarters, virtually seemgly clear biblil nunciatns of homosexual sex, as well as the rp of rabbic mentari and legal s based on those vers, lim how far Orthodox Judaism, marked by s fily to tradnal unrstandgs of Jewish law, or halacha, n move on this several efforts have emerged recent years to lend more support to Orthodox Jews experiencg homosexual sir and make the muny more passnate and welg toward them, all the efforts stop short of sanctng gay relatnships.

Consired s totaly, Orthodox Jewish tradn down firmly favor of heterosexualy as God’s tentn for humany, which has turn severely limed the acceptance of homosexualy wh the Orthodox muny.

MEET THE RABBI WHO BRGS ORTHODOX LBIANS TOGETHER WH GAY MEN SO THEY N HAVE KIDS

Diversy Orthodox ApproachWhile virtually no Orthodox rabbi explicly sanctns homosexual relatnships, there is some diversy of opn how the Orthodox muny ought to rpond to gay Jews. The two pol of this bate are fairly well leated by two petg statements on the first, entled “Statement of Prcipl on the Place of Jews wh a Homosexual Orientatn Our Communy, ” was drafted by a faculty member at the liberal Orthodox rabbil school Yhivat Chovevei Torah and released 2010. While acknowledgg the halachic (Jewish legal) ban on homosexual sex and rejectg any acceptance of same-sex marriage, the statement neverthels asserted that gays should be weled as full and equal members of Orthodox muni and should, most s, not be enuraged to marry someone of the oppose genr.

ORTHODOX PEOPLE WILL NEVER ACCEPT GAY MARRIAGE—UKRAIAN BISHOP MENTS ON GAY CIVIL UNNS MONTENEGRO

The Statement of Prcipl cled to weigh on the qutn of whether homosexual orientatn is geic and unchangeable, or if is a choice, as some people 2016, the Israeli Morn Orthodox rabbil group Be Hillel issued a siar statement, urgg that gays be allowed to serve “any munal pacy.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* ORTHODOX GAY MARRIAGE

Gay Marriage and Eastern Orthodoxy – Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy .

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