In 1985, in a Reform responsum identified on the CCAR response website as CARR 297-298, the questions was asked regarding rabbis officiating at the “marriage” of two homosexuals. The answer, in part, is:

"However we may understand homosexuality, whether as an illness, as a genetically based dysfunction or as a sexual preference and lifestyle -we cannot accommodate the relationship of two homosexuals as a "marriage" within the context of Judaism, for none of the elements of qiddushin (sanctification) normally associated with marriage can be invoked for this relationship.
A rabbi can not, therefore, participate in the "marriage" of two homosexuals."

About ten years later the issue was reconsidered in a responsum identified as NYP No. 5756.8. The question posed was, “May a Reform rabbi officiate at a wedding or "commitment" ceremony between two homosexuals? Does such a union qualify as kiddushin from a Reform perspective? This responsum is quite lengthy and suggests considerable difference of opinion, perspective and, even, assumptions. However, the majority reached the following conclusions:

"The majority of the members of this Committee respond in the negative to this she'elah. In our opinion, a Reform rabbi should not officiate at a ceremony of marriage between two persons of the same gender, whether or not this ceremony is called by the name kiddushin. …

Those who advocate homosexual marriage have not, in the opinion of our majority, met their burden of proof. That is, their arguments do not succeed in overcoming the opposition to this practice found in both the Jewish and the Western traditions.35 We do not accept the suggestion that the ritual category of to`evah is irrelevant to the question under discussion. While we Reform Jews have departed from traditional practice in many areas, we continue to "abhor" virtually all of the sexual prohibitions listed in Leviticus 18 and 20 as destructive of the Jewish conception of a life of holiness and morality.36 While it may be true that we as a community no longer look upon homosexual behavior, as we once did, as a revulsive act, the fact remains that no Jewish community has ever gone so far as to sanctify as marriage a sexual relationship which the Torah defines as ervah. Not even we, with all our liberality, have ever done this before.37 To do so now would be a revolutionary step, one which would sunder us from all Jewish tradition, including our own, down to the most recent time. …

Most of the members of this Committee oppose the use of the term kiddushin to describe a gay or lesbian union, precisely because the historic definition of that term, its legal content and the notions of kedushah which lie at its foundations rule out its application to anything but heterosexual Jewish marriage. We accept the traditional understanding of Jewish marriage as that kind of marriage which recognizes and is contracted within the sexual boundaries set by the Torah's law of arayot. Even those of us who believe that kedushah, sanctity, can exist in gay and lesbian relationships and who would recognize those unions as a form of Jewish marriage concede that the word kiddushin is difficult to separate from its heterosexual connotations. …

The majority of the members of this Committee, however, do not interpret our responsibility as rabbis to warrant officiation at weddings or wedding-like "commitment ceremonies" for gay and lesbian couples. We hold that we are empowered to "officiate" only and exclusively at Jewish marriage ceremonies, and we know of no form of "Jewish marriage" other than kiddushin. We understand kiddushin, in both its traditional and its Reform Jewish manifestations, as an institution whose legal essence excludes homosexual relations. The performance of a ceremony that resembles but is not kiddushin does not qualify as a Jewish marriage, even if the couple regard it as such. …"

In the final conclusion, the statement is made:

"2. The majority of this Committee define "Jewish marriage" as kiddushin. That concept, whether understood according to its traditional terms or its Reform interpretation, is a legal institution whose parameters are defined by the sexual boundaries which Jewish law calls the arayot. Homosexual relationships, however exclusive and committed they may be, do not fit within this legal category; they cannot be called kiddushin. We do not understand Jewish marriage apart from the concept of kiddushin, and our interpretation of rabbinic authority does not embrace the power to "sanctify" any relationship that cannot be kiddushin as its functional equivalent. For this reason, although a minority of us disagree, our majority believes that Reform rabbis should not officiate at ceremonies of marriage or "commitment" for same-sex couples."

The responsum contains language that distinguishes the religious from civil issues and points to the importance of inclusion and acceptance in the Reform context.

Nonetheless, it is worth noting, especially in this blog, that the question of gay marriage does have a religious dimension, even for Reform Jews, and it is appropriate to consider that dimension in discussions in other venues.

Rev. Dr. Ohnsman:
The U.S. Constitution says nothing about legalizing gay marriage. At the time it was written, marriage meant the union of a man and a woman. that is crystal clear. Sodomy was a crime. You will not find anything to support the concept that the founders intended to favor changing the institution of marriage to include gay or lesbian unions. Civil and religious authority in this country were in complete agreement on the meaning of marriage for hundreds of years. Only by allowing activist judges (who may be unelected and serving for life) to write new law based on whatever may be their own belief of what the law should be, can such an interpretation be reached. If the court no longer simply interprets the laws that the legislature passes and the executive signs, what is there to restrain them from acting against the will of the people in a tyrannical fashion? If the people want to make a change that is so fundamental to society, isn't the amendment of the law by the legislature the right way to do it in a democracy?