Q&A: LGBT and Same-Sex Marriage
LGBT and Same-Sex Marriage
Question
A certain issue that really bothers me is the fact that gay people, etc., who were born with or acquired at some early stage in childhood an attraction to their own sex (in any case, they didn’t choose it), if they want a religious life, it really doesn’t seem reasonable that they could live such a life. How can you ask a person not to have sexual relations for his entire life?? It doesn’t seem reasonable to me. I think this is one of the most trivial basic things a person has. There is of course the possibility that he could keep the rest of the Torah aside from this, but in any case it clashes head-on, very harshly, with something a person has no control over.
What is your view: is there really nothing to be done (halakhically), and this person is condemned either to a secular life or to a religious life with major sins that he can do nothing about, and which will most likely eventually lead to abandoning religion or to a deep mental crisis? Or perhaps there is some way that I don’t know. Thank you very much.
Of course I’m looking for the halakhic answer, and if the Rabbi could also say what he would advise such a person who comes to him and wants to live a reasonable religious life without experiencing existential crises, perhaps all his life…
Answer
The Torah requires this. I once raised an interpretive possibility according to which the prohibition does not apply to someone who has such an inclination. I based this on Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s statement that the Torah does not place a person in a trial he cannot withstand. (He of course wrote this in order to say that homosexuals can withstand the trial and that it is their choice, but in my opinion the facts are otherwise, and then the opposite conclusion emerges from what he intended.) But I am not at all certain about this. It is possible that the Torah indeed requires this, just as it requires a kleptomaniac not to steal.
But that does not mean that a person who cannot withstand this has no claim of duress. He is indeed obligated, but if he transgressed, he has the exemption of someone acting under compulsion. This can be supported by the Talmud in Ketubot 33b: “Had they flogged Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, they would have worshipped the idol,” from which we see that ongoing suffering, even if it is not as severe as death, is something a person cannot withstand.
I have no good advice for such a person, aside from the comfort that he is under compulsion, and if he fails, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not come with excessive demands upon His creatures. Therefore there is no need to enter a mental crisis. A person does what he can, and that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants. The requirements of Jewish law are not always what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants in practice. Even the rebellious son is a law that is never actually carried out.
Discussion on Answer
My younger brother is attracted to boys. Aside from the practical prohibition, there is a very hard feeling that God looks at him as an abomination. I know the interpretations, but on the plain meaning it’s hard to escape the conclusion that this is a transgression toward which God expresses revulsion. And in fact that’s how most religious people look at the matter (except for anyone who knows someone like this personally and closely). His feeling is (not my words), “God hates me.” That is different from a person who was born disabled; God really did “screw over” the disabled person, but the attitude toward him is one of compassion, not revulsion.
I know the Rabbi doesn’t deal with feelings, but I’m interested in how, in your opinion, one ought to view this issue, and whether you have a convincing interpretive way out. Because as human beings, it’s hard to serve someone who hates you.
I’ll send him the answer if there is something in it that can encourage him. Thank you!
The choice to relate this way to homosexuals is a (mistaken) choice of people, not the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He. Therefore I do not see a basis for a claim against the Holy One, blessed be He, and I also do not see what interpretive escape hatch is needed here.
The attitude toward a gay person ought to be similar to the attitude toward a disabled person.
The assumption that someone attracted to his own sex is an abomination is completely baseless and distorted. The Torah calls the act an abomination, not the attraction. On the contrary, the Torah says, “You shall not eat any abominable thing,” and even so the Sages said, “A person should not say: I cannot bear pork.” In other words, a person’s task is to overcome the feeling of attraction to what is forbidden, but the feeling itself contains no flaw or deficiency whatsoever.
Obviously. Who said otherwise?!
Thank you very much. This is the only serious answer I’ve ever heard on this subject from a religious authority.