Q&A: LGBT
LGBT
Question
Hello Rabbi, a few questions:
A. I heard an argument that same-sex inclinations are unnatural, because the only way for humanity to continue existing is through straight couples. Is that true? I seem to remember the Rabbi saying that same-sex inclinations can be natural. So what is the answer to that argument?
B. If the Rabbi’s answer is that it is indeed unnatural, as a result of point A, then the person making the claim argues that the state should not grant them rights (family rights, etc.) because it is unnatural. (Leaving Jewish law aside…)
C. Assuming the Rabbi’s answer is that it can be natural and that they should receive rights as a family, what would happen if in a few years people who want to live with animals, say, were also to demand recognition and family rights?
Answer
A. That’s nonsense. The accepted definition of “natural” is something that nature created, or tends to create. If nature tends to create creatures that have difficulty reproducing, then those are natural creatures בדיוק like any other creature. Some animals produce thousands of offspring, so are they more natural than you and me? Beyond that, why is the question of what is natural and what is not important? Does the legitimacy of something depend on its being natural? To be a supremely righteous person is not natural. Ordinary people aren’t like that and can’t be like that. On the other hand, speaking slander is completely natural. It’s a simple tendency that all of us have.
B. What’s the connection? Is the state not supposed to help sick people recover? Illness is not natural. Certainly not a rare illness.
C. If such a phenomenon became significant, then apparently society would have to take that into account too. And the same would apply to a brother who wants to live with his sister or his mother.
These stupid and unnatural arguments of this sort are characteristic of the fools in the organization “Hotam” and the like. It does us no honor to raise them and discuss them here. Even so, there is some minimum bar that I would expect from the discussions here.
Discussion on Answer
It really doesn’t matter who is making the argument, and that’s why I responded to the arguments themselves. I only noted that these are typical arguments of those organizations, and that was written not as a response to your words but as taking the opportunity to criticize them. Because they repeat foolish arguments of this type over and over. By the way, the argument is unbelievably stupid.
Of course, you have every right to be disappointed by whatever you want. Be well.
Yedidya — greetings,
On the contrary, heterosexual attraction is the unnatural one. The fact that a man is attracted to a woman stems from his being, in his subconscious, a woman, and therefore he is attracted to someone of his own gender. And vice versa: a woman attracted to a man is, in her subconscious, a man, and therefore she is attracted to someone of her own gender.
Evolution created the malfunction popularly called “straightness” so that there would be a regular supply of children for the normal couples, who are of course same-sex.
With blessings,
Dr. H. R. Boneh, Remember-LGBT
The Polytechnic Institute for Consciousness Engineering
University of Guadal-Queer
Many thanks to the Rabbi, really. In general, the Rabbi will surely be glad to hear that in all likelihood, if not for the Rabbi, it’s very possible I would have gone off the religious path. The Rabbi’s answers to many questions — unlike all the stock answers people hand out that don’t satisfy the intellect… so really, thank you, Rabbi!
Gladly
With God’s help, 25 Adar II 5782
To Rabbi M. A. D. A. — greetings,
If “natural” is something formed in a “natural” way, then addiction too would have to be defined as “natural.” After all, the way of the world is that a person who smoked drugs or drank alcohol a few times begins to feel a strong urge to repeat the pleasurable experience, and is sure that for him it is an existential need without which he cannot live.
The question is whether it benefits a person or not. And here the answer is: absolutely not! A person enslaved to drugs or alcohol gradually loses mental clarity and sinks more and more into intoxication, aside from the health damage those substances cause to someone who consumes them incessantly.
So too, someone who becomes enslaved to a charismatic “guru” begins to lose the ability for independent thought. That is what happened to the one who raised a substantive argument — that humanity would become extinct if everyone were LGBT, and there would be no one left to supply children to the “new families.” The “guru” answered forcefully that the question is stupid and suited to organizations of a certain sort, God forbid. The poor questioner hurried to apologize and went back to repeating how intellectually dependent he is on his admired teacher, without whom who knows where he would have ended up 🙂
So I will repeat the “stupid” argument, based on the categorical imperative: if I, you, and all of us become LGBT — where will children come from? Is a situation in which a couple can never bring children of their own into the world and is forced to obtain children through “child trafficking” (what is politely called “surrogacy”) — is that a good life for a person? In other words: does homosexuality benefit human nature or make life harder for it?
In my humble opinion this is implied in the words of Bar Kappara, that “abomination” means: “you go astray through it.” Going astray means losing the way, going nowhere. Instead of sexual desire contributing to the building of a natural family in which there is the possibility of bringing children into the world naturally and raising them through a blend of masculine and feminine character traits — we are building a family that consciously and intentionally will not be able to bring children into the world naturally, nor be educated through a blend of masculine and feminine character traits.
So does LGBT-ness benefit human nature, or not?
With blessings, Raziel Halevi Alterman-Yungleit
Why really is the categorical imperative not relevant here? After all, if everyone sleeps with men, humanity will not continue…
The rule is that if everyone sleeps with whoever they want, everything will be excellent. According to your logic, it should be forbidden to be a doctor or an actor or a politician or a scientist, because if everyone were one of those, the world would be a disaster.
It seems that wisdom is abundant in our day, and each and every person can erase the Torah of Moses our Rabbi for us and write us a new Torah of his own directly from Heaven.
This is really a distortion of the categorical imperative in this context. The categorical imperative definitely requires me to fulfill the commandment of “be fruitful and multiply”; that is what I would expect of every person as a moral act.
Okay, thank you, Rabbi.
I’m not managing to understand the ending of the Rabbi’s words. Why does it matter who is making the argument? There’s an argument, so let’s respond to it substantively. And this isn’t some foolish argument, and the Rabbi’s answer also wasn’t that he found some essential mistake or obvious logical flaw. The Rabbi defined things differently, and didn’t even completely persuade me.
As someone who always enjoys the Rabbi’s answers and columns, I was disappointed by the ending of the Rabbi’s remarks, as if arguments from Hotam and the like automatically carry the meaning of nonsense (and I’m not one of their admirers at all…).