Prop 8 Teaches Our Children That God Did Not Create Everyone Equal

As the father of children who have married—and divorced—and a lesbian daughter who gave birth to my second grandchild, I have struggled to reconcile traditional Jewish ideals with modern realities. Because I specialize in bioethics, and because AIDS first manifested itself in America primarily among gay men, when I was appointed to an AIDS task force at UCLA Medical Center in 1981, I came to know many gay men, including some Jewish ones. It was then that I came to understand that gays and lesbians are just like the rest of us, with the same range of strengths and weaknesses, the same desires to know love in their lives, and the same concerns for the welfare of the community as a whole. They are not, as often stereotyped, interested in overturning all the moral values that straights cherish; on the contrary, the prodigious attempts of gay men and lesbians to marry over the last ten years demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that they want stable, faithful relationships.

We are all created b’tzelem elohim, the Torah tells us, in God’s image:  Genesis 1:27 says “In the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” It does not make mention of sexual orientation, race or ethnicity. God chose to make ALL humans in His image, reflecting the idea that ALL humans are not only equal to each other, but are also more Godlike than all other life forms. God imbued each of us, man and woman, gay and straight, with both equality and Godliness.

At the same time, God decreed that “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18).  God intended for all humans to find a life partner. Marriage is both an intrinsic human need and a fulfillment of God’s divine plan. If all humans are indeed created in God’s image, then all humans, gay or straight, should have the right to fulfill God’s destiny for them. Indeed, it could be argued that only a capricious God would imbue all humans with a need for lifelong companionship, and then forbid five to ten percent of us from meeting that need. But God is not capricious. Rather, “God is good to all; His mercies apply to all creatures” (Psalm 145:9).

Finally, because we are all created in God’s image, Jewish law places great value on preserving human dignity. The Talmud teaches that “so great is human dignity that it supersedes a negative commandment of the Torah” (Berakhot 19b and elsewhere). While the rabbis place some limits on the application of this principle, it has far-reaching implications. Human beings may not be humiliated, marginalized or discriminated against even if they violate religious norms. Preserving the dignity of the individual takes precedence over almost any other concern. To deny homosexuals the right to marry further marginalizes them. Instead of inflicting more humiliation and suffering on an already embattled population, we should affirm the basic human dignity of same sex couples by embracing them as fully vested members of our communities.

To pass an initiative that writes inequality into the state constitution would violate God's intent that we are all created in His image. It would also undermine the secular American ideals written into the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution that we should all have the equal protections of the laws of our nation and state.

Again, no one expects all of us to agree – my own Conservative Movement now ordains openly gay and lesbian rabbis and supports ceremonies blessing same-sex couples, but it is still grappling with the ways such ceremonies should be the same as, or different from kedushin, full marriage. Some of my colleagues do not want to sanctify same-sex unions in any religious way. As Conservative rabbis, however, we support as a movement full civil marriage for gays and lesbians, giving them the full standing and dignity they deserve. We urge our congregants and our fellow Californians to Vote NO on Prop 8.