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Q&A: Conscientious refusal to rent a hall for a gay wedding

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

Conscientious refusal to rent a hall for a gay wedding

Question

Hello Rabbi,
In your opinion, is a conscientious refusal to rent out a hall for a gay wedding an illegitimate form of discrimination, or is it legitimate on the grounds of the hall owner’s freedom of religion?

Answer

In my opinion, it is completely legitimate, as long as the reason is the nature of the event and not the people hosting it. A few years ago there was a case of a print shop owner who refused to print ads for the Pride Parade in Be’er Sheva, and it went to court, and if I remember correctly they ruled against him. So legally I don’t know whether it’s lawful, and I wrote my opinion from an ethical standpoint.

Discussion on Answer

Aviv (2022-12-25)

What do you think, Rabbi, about the changes the emerging coalition is planning to make regarding the anti-discrimination law? (the daily media uproar)

Michi (2022-12-25)

As usual, like most uproars, this is nonsense. I am completely in favor of this change, and the hysterics of the fools in the media and their various hangers-on (doctors and politicians) against it are a matter of low intelligence and/or bias and lack of attention.
If a conversion therapy for gays is found, I promise you that a coalition of Meretz and Yair Lapid would be the first to change the law and make sure that a doctor or psychologist would not have to deal with it against his beliefs.
It is true that there are edge cases that could be harmed, and they need to be dealt with. For example, a religious doctor who would not treat a non-Jew on the Sabbath—that really is a problem. But from his standpoint this should not be problematic, just as everyone does this nowadays. The law only did them a favor by allowing them to violate Jewish law (that is, what they mistakenly think is Jewish law), as in other areas as well.
The basic criterion is what I wrote above here: it is forbidden to discriminate based on the patient, but it is certainly permitted based on the treatment. There is no reason in the world to force a doctor to act against his conscience (to perform gender reassignment surgery, conversion therapy, and the like). A doctor has rights no less than a patient.

Betuach (2022-12-27)

How awesome!!!!!!!! This is the interview with MK Simcha Rothman. It looks like he literally read your comment almost word for word and then went on air.

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