Re: marriage - how can it be a religious term, when [civil] marriages can be contracted outside the parameters of any religion? E.g., intermarriages between members of different endogamous cultures.
OTOH, I feel conflicted about signing petitions in favor of gay marriage. We have this mitzvah, "do not do as they did in [ancient] Egypt", which is pretty vague, but is defined rabbinically as "men would marry men, and women would marry women," among other things. So while I wouldn't gay-marry, not being gay myself, I feel that civil rights are civil rights, and should be maximized; on the other hand, I don't really want to enable people to sin, if either partner is a Jew. It would be like signing onto a petition that says "let Jews violate shabbos". Of course most Jews *do*, we live in the real world where people have real choices, but why should I enable them? They're going to do the nasty anyway, so why add on to their Judaeo-legal problems?
No comments:
Post a Comment