Q&A: Pedophilia Is Just a Matter of Time
Pedophilia Is Just a Matter of Time
Question
The main points of your argument are:
1. That the state should not prevent religious transgression.
I agree.
2. That adoption of children (surrogacy is only the practical means of bringing the child into the world; the main discussion is about adoption of children) by a male couple is like the question of adoption of children by a Sabbath-desecrating couple.
I really disagree. Sabbath desecration or Sabbath observance has nothing to do with the definition of the concept of family, which is a concept with legal, religious, social, etc. meanings. Whether a child may be adopted by two men is part of the very core of the concept of family, so recognizing adoption by a male couple is recognizing a new family with all its legal, social, and religious meanings.
I understand that moral-social transgression is something you certainly also agree the state should prevent.
Ethical-aesthetic transgression—do you see that as like religious transgression or social transgression, or since homosexuality is accepted today is there, in your view, no ethical-aesthetic transgression here?
There is a dispute about the harm to children adopted by a male couple; each side brings the studies that support its position.
I have a feeling that even the editors of the studies themselves have agendas, so all the research in this field should be taken with limited confidence.
I fear the day when pedophilia becomes accepted; it will be hard to prove that children are being harmed. They will find ways to show that the children are actually developing well because of it… things like that have happened before; see ancient Greece.
So how will you be able to annul marriages by disqualifying a pedophile witness? After all, to annul marriages by disqualifying a homosexual witness—even today you would not do that. Maybe then you will annul marriages of witnesses who are married to a woman and have children not through surrogacy, Heaven forbid.
Answer
Well, this topic has already been exhausted in the parallel thread. As for the demagogic claim that we will not be able to invalidate marriages—then if we cannot, we will not invalidate them. What does that have to do with the principled argument? I have no intention of going back and discussing here again a topic that was discussed extensively in the parallel thread:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%AA%D7%AA%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%92%D7%A0%D7%94-%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%9F-%D7%96%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%98%D7%91/#comment-16084
Discussion on Answer
To Y.D.,
I didn’t read the ruling; I don’t have the patience. I already know in advance what will be written there.
Moreover, I assume that on the principled level the ruling is correct according to Jewish law, admittedly with forced arguments, but in principle and at the level of a clean halakhic discussion it is legitimate. But when ruling in practice and not only in theory, other considerations enter the picture.
I am aware that Michael Abraham presents himself as though external considerations do not interest him, but the spokespersons for the “religious court” presented the ruling to the media as disqualification of a pedophile witness. That is excellent material for the rabbinical-establishment media agenda: rabbinate, marriages, pedophiles—a pair of concepts that no matter how you connect them, from the standpoint of their agenda it is excellent. See here https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5315418,00.html#autoplay
In this case it is enough for me to be fed by the media; that is enough to understand the agendas of the religious court.
After all, issuing a notice that the marriages were invalidated because the witness was homosexual would not serve the agenda in whose name they issue their rulings.
To Michi,
When pedophilia becomes legitimate (with children being exposed to sexual content the way children of homosexual couples are exposed to it; it is enough to look at their parades to understand the kind of sexual atmosphere in which they raise their children—I can imagine that proud pedophilia will grow out of this community), if there is a couple not of a cloud and a cat but of an eighty-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy who want to adopt a child as soon as possible because the old man is about to die,
if you’re feeling well, with God’s help, on that day will you go out to demonstrate with them?
Yaakov, I do not see anything in your remarks that requires a response, but I thank you for a direction I had not thought of. Indeed I disqualified the witness due to homosexuality, but actually he should also be disqualified due to pedophilia, and in my opinion even by Torah law. Indeed I did not think of that when I wrote it. Many thanks.
It seems the questioner didn’t notice, but in the ruling that the Rabbi posted on the site, the marriage was annulled because the witness was homosexual, not a pedophile (the complainant was already past bar mitzvah age). Pedophile is a legal definition. Male homosexual intercourse is a halakhic definition.