For years now, opponents of marriage equality have denounced gay marriage as contrary to the Bible. And where in the Bible is gay marriage denounced? In two places: In Leviticus 18:22 -
Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman, it is abhorrent.
And at Leviticus 20:13 -
If a man lies with a male as one lies with a woman, the two of them have done an abhorrent thing; they shall be put to death–their bloodguilt is upon them.
Judaism is based on and built upon the Torah - the Biblical books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Traditional Jews believe that every word of the Torah is the word of God, dictated by God to Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our teacher or rabbi. Moses's teachings in the Torah are binding to this day upon observant Jews - the laws of kashrut, with its prohibition of eating pork and shell fish, the observance of the seventh day, Saturday, as Shabbat, and observance of the holidays described in chapter 23 of Leviticus and chapter 16 of Deuteronomy: Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Fundamentalist homophobic Christians believe that the laws of the Torah have been superseded by the New Testament. Hence, these Christians eat ham sandwiches, observe Sunday as their Sabbath (in honor of Christ's resurrection), and observe Easter and Christmas and not the Jewish holidays. Yet for some reason that escapes me, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, these two lines and these two lines alone, remain binding, and it is only their interpretation of these two lines that matters. It never occurs to them to ask us Jews about our own Torah.
The classic Jewish interpretation of the Torah and how the Torah remains a living scripture after the sacrificial service of the Temple ended with the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, is found in the Talmud, compiled by innumerable rabbis between 180 and 500 CE. The oldest part of the Talmud is the Mishnah, authored by Rabbi Meir, and, upon his death, by Rabbi Judah HaNasi (Judah the Prince). The Mishnah was completed between 180 and 200 CE, and contains the basic Jewish laws that had been passed down orally for generations, and which needed to be reduced to writing in the face of increasing Roman persecution. After the completion of the Mishnah, rabbis at various academies in Israel and Bablylon, over the next 300 years, argued over the Mishnah, and went on frequent tangents. Their arguments and tangents and stories are summarized in the bulk of the Talmud's 6,200 plus pages, the Gemara.
Now that you have the basics, what does the Talmud say about these two verses of the Torah? The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 54a) states:
A man who has sex with another male, or with a beast, is to be stoned. A woman who has sex with a beast is to be stoned.
So what does the Mishnah teach us? That female partners do not violate these two verses of the Torah!
The Gemara discusses this Mishnah by quoting and explaining Leviticus 20:13:
"If a man" - this excludes a minor - "lies with a male" - this denotes whether an adult or a minor - "as one lies with a woman" this teaches that there are two modes of sex, both of which are punished.
What does the Gemara mean by "two modes of sex"?
In 2006, Rabbis Elliot Dorff, Daniel Nevins, and Avram Reisner authored a responsum that was adopted an an official position for Conservative Judaism. (A dissenting responsum was also adopted, but its authors and other dissenters then resigned in protest from the committee promulgating these positions.) The "majority" responsum, linked here, explains that the compilers of the Talmud sometimes used euphemisms to describe sexual relations that were outside the norm, and what the Gemara means by "two modes of sex" are vaginal and anal intercourse. It was the latter that the Talmud construes Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 to ban, when engaged in by two men, or by a man on a child. The responsum holds that anal intercourse, but not oral sex or other forms of intimacy between consenting adults, remains banned. Rabbis who will conduct a marriage ceremony uniting two gay men should, prior to the ceremony, advise the couple that anal intercourse is banned by Torah law.
But the authors of the responsum provide a broader reason for supporting gay marriage, and for allowing for the ordination of openly gay rabbis - these two lines from Leviticus must be read against the Talmudic principle of Kavod HaBriyot, the honor we owe to our fellow human beings. In Deuteronomy 17:9-11 we read:
You will go to the priests and the judge in office in those days and seek a solution; they will render a verdict.
You must then do as they have determined at that place the Lord chooses. Be careful to do just as you are taught.
You must do what you are instructed, and the verdict they pronounce to you, without fail. Do not deviate right or left from what they tell you.
The rabbis of the Talmud derived their authority to override negative commandments of the Torah from these verses, and the authors of this responsum do so today.
In the Talmud, Berakot 19b, we read:
Great is human dignity, for it overrides a negative commandment of the Torah. Why should it? . . . Said Rabbi Kahana, "If a great man makes a statement, you must not laugh at him." All the ordinances of the Rabbis were based by them on the prohibition (Deut. 17:11) 'You shall not deviate right or left from what they tell you,' but where the question of Kavod HaBriyot [human dignity] is concerned the Rabbis allowed it [the override of a negative commandment.]
An example of the application of Kavod Habriyot can be found in Shabbat 89b. Much of the Talmud's tractate Shabbat concerns the rule against carrying objects from a private place, a home or a building, to the outside, or from outside in a public place into a private place. But the rabbis permitted the carrying of stones on the Shabbat to take into a privy to wipe oneself, because "Kavod HaBriyot is very important, and it supercedes negative commandments of the Torah."
With this background, the authors of the responsum found that all restrictions against homosexuality, with the one exception of anal intercourse, violate the Kavod HaBriyot of the homosexual, and these restrictions would now be abolished. However, one is not permitted to ask a gay man whether he does anal sex, such a question would be a violation of Kavod HaBriyot. We assume that married heterosexual couples do not engage in prohibited sex - for example - sex while the wife is menstruating, and we don't ask gays such questions either. The rabbinical ruling concluded by authorizing Conservative rabbis to officiate at gay marriages, and authorizing the two Conservative seminaries, the Jewish Theological Institute in New York and the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, to admit gay rabbinical candidates for ordination upon graduation. And this spring, the same three rabbis published here a second responsum containing minor modifications to the marriage ceremony, as these rabbis concluded that certain text traditional for the marriage ceremony should be modified for same sex couples.
In conclusion, opponents of marriage equality base their opposition on two sentences from the holiest document of the Jewish faith, and it seems to me that we Jews should have something to say about this.