Fresh Updates from RAC

This post was originally published on RAVblog on May 30, 2013.

What does it mean to be part of a movement? What could it look like if we actually moved together?

On Thursday May 23rd 42 Californian Reform Jews answered that question as we gathered in Sacramento for a day of lobbying and learning. A beautiful mix of clergy and community members, we took our message of justice and equality to the State Capitol. Our day was filled with individual lobby visits to 30 Assembly Members and state Senators as well as a meeting with Governor Brown’s office and with Senate President pro tem Darrell Steinberg. That morning, as we stood together on the steps of the Capitol, preparing ourselves for this ambitious day of meetings, we offered words of prayer. Rabbi Jason Gwasdoff from Stockton reminded us that although we pray in separate synagogues, we offer the same words, to the same God, for the same reasons. As we sang Shehecheyanu, we not only thanked God for bringing us to the Capitol to do justice, we thanked God for bringing us together as a movement.

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A few weeks ago, I made my annual trip to Albany as part of Reform Jewish Voice for New York State’s Lobby Day.  It may seem unlikely that one voice can make a difference, but I know it can.  After visiting Albany for several years in a row, I now know both my elected officials and their staff members – and vice versa.  It feels very gratifying to know that several people in the State Capitol know who I am and also know that I represent thousands of Reform Jews in New York.

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The Agape Health Team has been offering annual temporary medical clinics on the island of La Gonave, Haiti for over 10 years, staffed by a combination of volunteers from the United States and Haiti.  Eno Mondesir, Ph.D., a public health official and Protestant minister who was born on the island, founded the team. After the devastating earthquake of January 2013, volunteers from the Reform Congregation of Temple Isaiah in Lexington, Massachusetts joined the team in a spirit of tikkun olam (“repair the world”).  Since then, a productive partnership has been developed between the Boston area Haitian-American community and congregants from Temple Isaiah. The Temple Isaiah Sisterhood and Social Action Committee have provided crucial financial support, in 2010, 2011, and 2012 the Agape Health Team planned and operated one-week clinics on La Gonave, seeing several hundred patients each year. It also does research and planning to determine how to best improve public health on La Gonave.

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On May 2, Rhode Island’s governor signed a marriage equality bill, making it the tenth state to take this important step.   Shortly afterwards, Delaware and Minnesota also passed marriage bills, making this a remarkable spring of advancement towards equality.

I composed the following reflection after the last critical step in the long process of advocacy and legislative debate, the hearing held by the Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee in March. Read more…

Martin Luther King’s letter from a Birmingham Jail is one of the most powerful and stirring documents of the Civil Rights movement in America—in some ways more compelling than the now legendary “I Have a Dream” oration, which electrified the historic March on Washington 50 years ago.

Unlike the Dream speech, which was aimed at the conscience of all Americans, the jail speech was deeply personal and directed specifically at the leading clergymen in Birmingham who had called on King to abandon his public Birmingham campaign and content himself with the small, non-controversial steps that the clergymen were promoting behind the scenes.

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At the beginning of 2012 I wrote on RACblog: “As we move into the 2012 election year, the war on women has become more extreme and effective.” Not only did this prove to be true (it’s hard to forget the offensive rhetoric spewed by so many candidates across the country in 2012 elections), but states have continued to pass laws since then, which have stripped women of their right to choose when, how and if to have a family, or have created socioeconomically-based barriers that restrict access to reproductive health services.

That’s why Morgan Meneses-Sheets’s piece in Truthout (the program manager for Reproductive Health Technologies Project – a strong partner with the RAC on our reproductive justice initiatives) really struck a chord with me.

Before you read on, keep in mind how wholly our reproductive rights advocacy efforts are informed by our Jewish values. While it often feels as though the Religious Right has a monopoly on the faith-based perspective on reproductive rights, this doesn’t need to be the case. In the Mishnah we read, “If a woman’s labor becomes life threatening, the one to be born is dismembered in her abdomen…for her life comes before the life of the fetus.” From this and other Talmudic passages we learn that, while all life is sacred, the life of a mother has more value than the life of an unborn fetus. Additionally, when considering the health of the mother, we consider her physical, spiritual and emotional health – her body and her nefesh (soul). Abortion is a deeply personal issue, and the decision of when life begins is often a religious one.

Check out Morgan’s piece here, or read it below:

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On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

As a Boy Scout I lived the Scout Oath.  Every Tuesday night from around age 11 until around age 18, scout meetings opened with its recitation.  Every time I was up for a rank advancement, I was asked to explain what it meant.  When I became an Eagle Scout, I was taught that I would forever be a “marked man;” that everywhere I went, I would be judged by whether I upheld the Scout Oath and lived my life according to its words.  Notwithstanding the slight hyperbole of my Eagle Scout ceremony, when I tell people I’m an Eagle Scout, they do look at me differently.  The meanings of those looks though have changed over the years.

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May 9, 2013

Boy Scouts of America

Middle Tennessee Council
3414 Hillsboro Pike
PO Box 150409
Nashville, TN 37215

Dear Friends

I am writing as a rabbi and as one who became an Eagle Scout in 1966.  From 1963 to 1972, I spent time each summer at the Stahlman Camp of the Boxwell Reservation in Middle Tennessee.   From 1970 – 72, I worked on the waterfront there.  In 1970, I attended the National Camping School of the BSA and in 1971 was an instructor in that school.  I was also honored by being Order of the Arrow.  At one time, I was even considering a career path in the BSA.

I am writing to express my significant disappointment that the Middle Tennessee Council of the Boy Scouts of America has announced that it would not support a proposed policy change that would open membership to young people who are openly gay.

In all my years of scouting, I cannot think of one minute wherein I was encouraged to discriminate against another scout.  I grew up during the Civil Rights era in Nashville.  The first significant friendships and relationships that I had with African American youth my age occurred at Boxwell.  I learned there that social justice and treating others with respect and fairness were integral parts of scouting and the Scout Law.  Specifically, I learned from the Scout Law that “A Scout is Friendly.  A Scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other Scouts. He offers his friendship to people of all races and nations, and respects them even if their beliefs and customs are different from his own.”

I can hardly see how discrimination against openly gay young people and openly gay adults who wish to work as patrol dads and/or Scout leaders is not an egregious violation of the Scout Law.

Around the country, educators – myself included – are actively working to curtail bullying.  This ban actually makes it more likely that bullying will occur and that significant harm will occur to gay youth, adults and their families around the country.   I also wish to point out that most distressingly LGBT youth experience significantly higher rates of suicide. These children and their families must not be denied the opportunities to achieve as well as the structures of support that the Boy Scouts already provide to so many.

Personally, I am not gay.  I am the proud father of three wonderful children and the devoted husband to my wife for thirty-eight years.   As I Jew, I have seen only all too recently the terrible effects of discrimination against the Jewish people.   The recent history of the Jews in World War II illustrates the terrible consequences of bias and bigotry, even when sanctioned by the majority of people within a society.  Accordingly, I am appalled by the statement that this decision was based upon research during which “of about 3,000 surveyed, 66 percent said openly gay youths should not be allowed to participate in Scouting. About 15.7 percent said gay Scouts should be allowed. The rest were neutral.”  Basic human rights should never be subject to the will of the majority.  When I was growing up, I learned that the Scout Law applied to everyone, not just to those who were popular, Christian, white or heterosexual.

Jewish tradition here is fully congruent with the best of the Scout Law when it teaches that all human beings are created in the image of God.  This is also entirely congruent with the twelfth Scout Law, “A Scout is Reverent” which obviously I take very seriously.  That stamp of the divine applies to us all!

Therefore, I would like to urge you to support the lifting of the BSA’s policy of discrimination that currently impacts both children and adults. When that occurs, I would look forward once again to participating again in the worthy work of the BSA.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Fred Guttman

Temple Emanuel

Greensboro, NC

Note:  Rabbi Fred Guttman is a native of Nashville, belonged to Troop 31 sponsored by St. Georges Episcopal Church and is a graduate of MBA and Vanderbilt.

Rabbi Fred Guttman is the senior rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro, NC.

The Religious Action Center is currently circulating a sign on letter for rabbis and cantors calling for the Boy Scouts of America to lift their ban on gay scouts and scout leaders, if you are interested in signing please click here.