Rabbis Reconsider Gay Sex

A panel of 25 Conservative rabbis is meeting next week in New York to discuss whether homosexual sex is permitted under Jewish law.

The discussion will center around five proposed teshuvot, or answers, to questions regarding homosexuality.

Two answers reportedly uphold the traditional position from the Bible: "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination” – which prohibits homosexuality between men and, by extension, between women.

But the other three answers argue for a reinterpretation of that prohibition, and "on a practical level, they could open the way for Conservative rabbis to perform same-sex commitment ceremonies and for Conservative seminaries to ordain openly gay rabbis,” the Washington Post reports.

The Conservative movement has about 2 million members worldwide, and occupies a position between Orthodox and Reform Judaism. Advance word is that the panel – the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards – will approve conflicting answers. That’s possible because the votes of just 6 of the 25 panel members are required to declare an answer valid.

In any case, whatever decision the panel reaches will be only advisory, according to the Post. In the Conservative movement, each rabbi can decide which point of view to follow in his or her synagogue.

But the panel’s decision will be important for the future of the Conservative movement, which has seen its numbers dwindle in the U.S. in recent decades.

Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, told the Post that the "movement as a while will be able to say that it is in the center and, more important, that there is more than one way to be a Jew . . .

"The Democratic Party did pretty well with that big-tent strategy in this past election, and my sense is there is a lesson there for a centrist movement that is struggling to appeal to younger people.”