Q&A: Attitudes Toward Homosexuals
Attitudes Toward Homosexuals
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I recently read the chapter in the third book of the trilogy about attitudes toward homosexuals.
The Rabbi writes there that he does not see any moral problem with sex between males, only a problem on the religious plane.
According to Kant’s categorical imperative, a moral act is one that we should be able to accept as a universal law. That means moral support for homosexuals has to take into account that this would become a “universal law.”
My claim is that there is a basic moral flaw here: cutting off humanity’s rooted continuity and bringing about its destruction.
In other words, we have a moral duty to continue the existence of the human species and bring children into the world.
It is not moral to permit a man or woman who is biologically capable of bringing a child into the world to refrain from doing so.
Even the sages of the Talmud (except for Ben Azzai) married women and had children.
I would be glad to understand more comprehensively why you do not see this as a moral problem.
(I do not mean the general approach, but this specific point. With the overall approach I agree and support it.)
Answer
First, the issue on the table is not the two options you are comparing: that a gay man should marry a woman and maintain a heterosexual household, or that he should live in a same-sex relationship. He does not have the first option. So the alternatives are: either he lives alone or he lives with a partner. The world’s population will not grow from either of those two options. Therefore it is not correct that the categorical imperative decides against his policy.
Beyond that, one can define the universal law differently: each person should have sexual relations with the person to whom he is attracted. That is a universal law I have no problem living with, and it certainly does not bring destruction upon the world. On the contrary, today there is some aspiration to reduce the birthrate a bit.
Take into account that many universal laws consider people’s characteristics and create a division of labor accordingly. I would not want everyone to be doctors. Does that mean practicing medicine is immoral? The same applies to every occupation in the world. The categorical imperative is not meant to create a boring and inefficient world in which everyone does the same thing. That itself would destroy the world and would run contrary to the categorical imperative.
And beyond all this, even if you were right, there is a price one is required to pay for a moral principle (see the latest column, 424, posted today, about a conflict between a value and an interest).
Discussion on Answer
Absolutely not. See column 15 briefly, and the lecture series on Jewish law and morality, and also the third book of the trilogy.
So I looked at column 15. In the section, “Why doesn’t Jewish law enter the moral sphere?”
You wrote: each of us understands on his own what morality is and what is permitted and forbidden, and there is no need at all for the Torah to spell things out for us in matters of morality… There is no Jewish morality and gentile morality…
So the Germans understood that it was moral to solve the Jewish problem because that’s how each person understands things for himself???
And you also wrote: morality depends on norms that develop in different times and places, and therefore the Torah does not want to set it in stone.
But that contradicts the idea that each person understands it on his own. Because with developing norms, I personally do not always develop at the same pace as everyone else, and the world and its countries also do not always develop at the same pace in terms of social norms. What is moral for one person is not moral for another.
A simple example: I think matters of modesty have a moral aspect, and many others think so too. There are many people throughout the world, especially women, who do not understand the connection to morality. So it has nothing to do with morality???
Maybe the opposite is true: maybe the changing norms in the world have distanced and degraded us from the Torah’s true morality, which is not always grasped by human reason. And maybe in earlier times people set aside their own judgment before the Torah’s morality and understood that there is a higher morality here, beyond their understanding. Or perhaps they understood that morality better.
By the way, regarding matters of modesty and forbidden sexual relations, including sex between males, the Torah explicitly says at the end of Parashat Acharei Mot:
“Do not defile yourselves by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am casting out before you became defiled.
And the land became defiled, and I punished it for its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants…
For all these abominations were done by the people of the land who were before you, and the land became defiled.
So that the land not vomit you out as well when you defile it, just as it vomited out the nation that was before you.”
Defilement, vomiting out, abomination — explicit expressions of immorality — what is there even to discuss???
All these questions have been asked and chewed over thoroughly. They were all answered there and in other places.
The Dissenter, if you have the time and energy, I really recommend listening to the Rabbi’s lecture series on Jewish law and morality by Rabbi Michi.
The Rabbi explains the difference there clearly and answers all your questions.
In the past, homosexuals got married and had children. Homosexuality existed either as a status-related matter, as in ancient Greece, or as a side effect of a polygamous society in which a small group of men enjoy many women, while a significant group of men have no women at all and therefore turn to homosexual activity. Therefore the Sephardic halakhic decisors who lived in a polygamous society were concerned about sex between males, whereas the Ashkenazic halakhic decisors who lived in a monogamous society were not concerned.
And I definitely agree with the questioner that a homosexual also needs to be fruitful and multiply with a woman because of the categorical imperative of preserving the species.
In the private sphere, this is between a person and God. In the public sphere, the public can decide whether it wants it to be permitted (or forbidden) for two men to kiss in public and the like. The public decides whatever it wants. The problem arises when governmental authorities decide for the public as a whole things that run contrary to the public’s will.
What is the difference between a moral problem and a problem on the religious plane??
Are the Torah’s commandments, whether they have an evident reason or not, not meant to express the correct morality for a human being?