RJ Blog

Washington, D.C. August 9, 2012 – A group of Reform Jewish clergy in Michigan – 16 rabbis and 3 cantors – have signed a letter, coordinated by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, to Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) urging him to join 41 of his Senate colleagues in co-sponsoring the Safe Schools Improvement Act (S.506). The text of the letter is as follows:

For the first time, an openly gay organization was allowed to participate in New York City’s Israel Day parade, which was held on Sunday. This is the culmination of a fight that began in 1993, when Congregation Beth Simchat Torah – an LGBT synagogue – registered for, and then was kicked out of, the march. Beginning in 1999, the congregation was allowed to participate, as long as it didn’t use the word “gay” on any of its banners. This inclusion has resulted in a renewed chorus of accusations of “pinkwashing.” Groups like “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid” claim that Israel and [...]

In response to the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards’ approval of guidelines for performing same-sex marriages, Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, issued the following statement:

There are a lot of gay, bisexual and transgender nerds. After all, there are people with different sexual orientations and gender identities in every community, whether it’s a professional field, interest area, school or synagogue. But, unlike their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts, it can be easy for gay, bi and trans kids to feel excluded from the world of nerds. Girls, too, are often underrepresented in the gaming world – or, when they are present, they are sexualized or tokenized. The world of video games, computers and comics is one overwhelming dominated by straight, cisgender men. Online game play is [...]

Yesterday, North Carolinians voted to write discrimination into their state constitution, joining 29 other states that have constitutional bans on marriage equality. Amendment 1, which passed with 61 percent in favor to 39 percent against, however, goes much further than those passed in other states. Whereas other states have bans restricting “only” marriage equality, this amendment also prohibits any recognition of civil unions and domestic partnerships, regardless of the couple’s sexual orientations. There is little doubt that, one day, this hateful measure will be repealed – even one of its key supporters has recognized that the amendment will not last [...]

About a year ago, the United States finally killed Bin Osama Laden, the terrorist mastermind behind the September 11th attacks. It didn’t take long for torture apologists to start claiming that brutal interrogation methods had yielded the information that led to the compound where the Al Qaeda leader had been hiding. At the time, the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), said that “to the best of our knowledge … none of [the information] came as a result of harsh interrogation practices.” The debate over the value of torture as an information-gathering tool has been reawakened [...]

Today, millions of students are taking a stand in their schools against anti-LGBT bigotry. They are participating in the National Day of Silence, which calls attention to the effects of bullying and harassment in schools. By not speaking for a day, students show their classmates what they accomplish when they stigmatize being LGBT. In addition, participating students experience for themselves, even if only for a day, what it is like to not be able to share their thoughts freely. Yesterday, by contrast, was the harmful “Day of Dialogue,” sponsored by anti-gay hate groups. On the so-called “Day of Dialogue,” children [...]

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech, where a mentally disturbed student named Seung-Hui Cho opened fire on his classmates, killing 32 and wounding 25 others. One of the victims was a Jewish Holocaust survivor and professor who used his body to barricade his classroom door to allow his students to escape. It was the deadliest shooting committed by a single person in American history.

Recently, the movie Bully became the center of a controversy when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced that it intended to rate the documentary “R,” thereby preventing the vast majority of American teenagers from being able to view the film. The MPAA was concerned about language in the film, but critics quickly pointed out that there’s no one to edit out language in the lives of the millions of middle- and high-school students who are bullied every day. Following a petition started by American students and signed by nearly 500,000 people, and after the company behind the movie [...]

There is a war being waged on LGBT people throughout the world. In Iraq, teenagers suspected of being gay have become targeted for beatings that frequently turn fatal. In Russia, the national legislature may soon consider legislation that would prohibit any form of LGBT advocacy. In Uganda, the government is –yet again – considering legislation that would impose the death penalty on lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. In recent weeks, Iraqi gay youth – and youth suspected of being gay –are being killed with even greater frequency than usual. Militias have distributed hit lists. In the last six weeks, as many [...]

As marriage equality legislation advances in Washington state, New Jersey and Maryland, pro-equality faith voices have been making their voices heard at legislative hearings – and Reform Jews have wasted no time in speaking up. Throughout the testimony by members of the Reform Movement, two themes emerge: the holiness (kiddushin) to be found within same-sex relationships and the importance of marriage equality to the religious liberty of Reform Jews. This approach echoes the observations of a Salon.com writer who, in observing the success of LGBT equality activists in achieving a majority of Americans in support of marriage equality, noted: “This [...]

Progress toward full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans seems to jump forward with every year that goes by, though we certainly have a ways to go. Only a few years ago, the fight for LGBT equality, despite making gradual progress in public opinion polling, suffered setbacks in the 2008 elections.  That year a majority of Californian voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that stripped away the right to marry from same-sex couples — and majorities in Arizona and Florida approved similar measures by wide margins. Since then, a majority of Americans say they have [...]

This week, the Supreme Court held, in United States v. Jones, that police violated the Constitution by using a global position system (GPS) device to track a suspect’s movements. In addition, the Court indicated that it may bring the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures into the modern era: though the Founders could not have predicted today’s technology, the rights with which all Americans are endowed are timeless. This decision was an important move to protect the basic rights of all Americans, and the Court’s conclusion that the use of a GPS tracking device constitutes a search and [...]

Daniel (D.J.) Kaplan has been the Union of Synagogue Youth (USY) International President for the past year. In his farewell address, he talked about when he came out of the closet. As important as it is for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people to, when it is safe, come out and be out, the part of D.J.’s speech that struck me the most was when he talked about his experience coming to terms with his sexuality and the impact that bullying had on him: