It’s a bit disingenuous to say, “If a person eats non-kosher or speaks gossip, do you…”

Obviously, if a person turns this into a normative and accepted way of life (not as someone committing a transgression), that is something that needs examination.
If a person lives by a system of eating non-kosher food, would we accept him?

“Accept into the community” means giving him Torah-related positions in the community. Would you give a person who openly declares that he accepts gossip and has no problem with it a position in the community?
Why do you “ostracize” a secular person from your community?

I don’t ostracize anyone. There is a question regarding joining a prayer quorum or being appointed prayer leader. Someone who does not believe cannot do either of those things, but someone who commits a transgression, even regularly, can. There is a big difference between a homosexual and a Sabbath desecrator. A Sabbath desecrator does things because he feels like it; for a homosexual this is a very hard trial, and apparently almost impossible. If he doesn’t withstand it, that does not disqualify him from anything. I assume none of us would withstand it either.

Don’t you think there is a difference between a person who does something because it is hard for him but understands the gravity of the act, and a person who is proud of what he does and does not care about the prohibition?

It isn’t true that he doesn’t care about the prohibition. There are serious religious people who live in such a relationship.

Rabbi Lau did not make do with turning to communities and asking them to accept such transgressors and to be sensitive to them. That is trivial; there is room to discuss whether it is correct (in particular, whether in such a transgression there is not a declaration of disconnect from Jewish law), but that is not the issue.

Rabbi Lau, as stated, did not stop there, but even encourages (implicitly) people with such inclinations to seek out a relationship with members of the same sex. And that is much more severe, because it is actual encouragement to commit a transgression. This is not just liberal acceptance; it is a coarse trampling of a Torah prohibition.

There is no rabbi under heaven who would write a document for a Sabbath desecrator telling him when to drive to the synagogue, or which movie to watch on Netflix. Religious communities are full of people who live with a woman in a prohibited relationship (before marriage, and in certain cases a priest and a divorcée and other prohibitions), and no rabbi would even think of encouraging their relationship. Everybody knows it is forbidden, and that’s that.

I do not know exactly what he wrote, but even when it comes to a transgression, sometimes people encourage it if the alternative is worse. Especially here, where life without such a relationship is unbearably hard. Again I will repeat that the comparison to a Sabbath desecrator is incorrect.

Would Rabbi Lau equally accept public Sabbath desecrators or declared thieves, say members of a gang of thieves?

There are women and men who live in prolonged late singleness and do not merit a relationship. Obviously this is very difficult, but from here to saying “I don’t think we would withstand the trial”… after all, there are quite a few who do withstand the trial even in difficult situations and do not fail in Torah prohibitions (indeed, certainly there is a difference in that someone who remains single late still expects a relationship to come, but still.)

I read Lau’s letter several times. And in my humble opinion, all the huge uproar that was created, all the wars that began over this notice, are because of the style. Lau’s style, in this letter, is very vague. All that is written in the document is that one should be empathetic in the community and in the family toward religious LGBT people. Rabbis from all across the Religious Zionist spectrum have been saying this for years. I have a feeling that what bothered people in the letter is what was not said: the emphasis that there is no legitimacy for the act even if one is patient toward it. The style is one of a principle of very strong religious tolerance that is not backed by any meta-halakhic principle, such as that this can bring Jews closer to their Father in Heaven and “bring them back to the right path.” And this is something that recurs many times אצל Lau. Whether in controversies over intermarriage—“one must respect it because we too are people who desire and uphold democratic values”—or in participation and meetings with Reform and Conservative Jews. And the impression one gets of him, as a public figure, is that democratic and tolerant values exist in him in parallel with religious positions, and that he does not feel a need to explain how this does or does not clash.

Which of course creates the image of a nice, lightweight, pleasant rabbi who wants to get along with everyone and be loved by everyone, and whose religious commitment supposedly is weaker or less important to him. And that is what arouses people’s anger—both over this document and over everything he says and publishes. He does not really help matters when he does not bother to explain the difference between tolerance for different positions and behaviors without legitimizing or agreeing with them (as, for example, Michi does from a philosophical standpoint), or through meta-halakhic reasoning such as “bringing Jews closer to Torah” or “sanctification of God’s name,” but instead speaks like any person / thinker / leader emphasizing how important it is to be tolerant, open, respectful, and nonviolent, while speaking as a community rabbi and a religious person. And this does indeed create a certain ridicule and mockery, which I too feel when I read his articles, and more than once I get confused and wonder whether I have wandered into the template of a Reform preacher.

It should be noted that I actually respect Lau, and his path of religious commitment with tolerance, and I do not think there is a contradiction. But his vagueness—that way of speaking that supposedly tries to dance at two weddings—really does cause ridicule. And that is a shame.

As for how Rabbi Benny Lau is perceived by conservative circles, Yigal Knaan—a student of Rabbi Zvi Tau / Yisrael Tau—put it very well:
“Being a rabbi within a framework of life’s sweetness, and academic lectures,
saying yes to the framework even when it is wicked. And giving the scepter exclusively to the king. And finding favor in the eyes of the gentile.”
“You preferred to be a rabbi of cream cakes in Katamon. Beloved of the anti-Zionist left and the New Israel Fund.”

“A Sabbath desecrator does things because he feels like it; for a homosexual this is a very hard trial, and apparently almost impossible. If he doesn’t withstand it, that does not disqualify him from anything. I assume none of us would withstand it either”
Wow! Wow! Are you serious???
A person murdered his wife because he discovered she had cheated on him. I also assume none of us would withstand that.
A person murdered the adulterer who slept with his wife. I also assume none of us would withstand that.
A person slept with a beautiful married woman who seduced him. They were both alone and he just couldn’t hold back anymore.
A person desecrated the Sabbath because he was dying for a cigarette—I also assume none of us would withstand that.
A person serving in the army of gentiles was overcome by disgust and ate forbidden foods—I also assume none of us would withstand that.
What is going on??
The Torah forbids it. So the Holy One, blessed be He, knows that we are able to withstand it. “Which a person shall do and live by them.”
Hello???? Basic Judaism!!!!!!!!!!!!