Posted on 06/28/2015 5:00:25 PM PDT by Nachum
[T]he Orthodox Jewish community has a different view. This was voiced by, among others, the Orthodox Union and the Agudath Israel of America. The latter, in a statement Friday, warned that its members faced “moral opprobrium” and were in danger of “tangible negative consequences” if “they refuse to transgress their beliefs.”I'll shut the comments on this post if I have to, but I can tell you that I would not want my children taught by someone who is openly gay. No way. I want my children to be able to look up at their teachers as religious role models. Then again, since I live in Israel, it's unlikely that any of my children's schools (except for the children in university, which is a different category) could be forced to hire gay teachers.
To judge by recent events, they are understating the case. The whole campaign for same sex marriage, however high-minded its ideals and however real — and all too often violent — the injustices endured by same-sex couples, has been levied at the expense of religious Jews and Christians. The U.S. Supreme Court majority knows that full well. But it dodged the issue, with Justice Anthony Kennedy, author of the majority opinion, giving the fears of religious Americans less than a paragraph.Kennedy emphasized that “religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.” He noted that the First Amendment, part of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, “ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.”
That was a reference to the free speech part of the First Amendment. But it was startling — shocking even — that the majority gave no mention at all of the Constitution’s second principle of religious protection, the right to the “free exercise” of religion. That is where the battle lines are being drawn by liberal and left-wing factions in America seeking to force religious individuals to embrace same-sex marriage.
In recent months, Americans have been reading about a Christian baker who has been the subject of an enforcement action in Colorado for declining to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, a husband-and-wife clerical team that reportedly may have to close their for-profit wedding chapel because they won’t hold same-sex nuptials in it, and a New York family that is tangled in a legal proceeding for refusing to rent out their home for a same-sex wedding reception. A Catholic adoption agency that would not work with same-sex couples has been forced out of its charitable work.
“In all likelihood, many of these rear-guard actions against marriage equality will soon fall of their own weight,” Jeffrey Toobin, who covers the Constitution for the New Yorker, wrote after the Supreme Court spoke. “Like so many of their fellow-Americans, wedding photographers and the like will make their peace with the new rules that guarantee their neighbors an equal chance at happiness. (Besides, they need the business.)” Maybe, but I’m not so sure things will go as smoothly as he imagines in the Orthodox Jewish world.
“The issue here is not whether all human beings are created in the Divine Image, or whether they have inherent human dignity. Of course they are, of course they do,” the Agudah said in a statement after Obergefell vs. Hodges was handed down. But it went on to assert that “the truths of Torah are eternal, and stand as our beacon even in the face of shifting social mores.” At some point this is going to come to a head in a way that will test George Washington’s promise to the Jews to a degree that we haven’t yet seen.
Labels: Agudath Yisrael, American Jews, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, gays, Orthodox Jews, US Supreme Court
They’ll have them here, too. Inside of a year is my guess.
L
Let them bring their biggest, baddest guns. This is war.
The old Soviet Communists taught these people in charge of the country well it seems. We were too busy fighting communism abroad that we ignored the threats of communist Americans who went in the dark and then got into position of power and influence
Approving of sexual perversion/corruption is now what is a virtue.
Being opposed to it is now considered unloving and phobic.
I don't think we ignored them, we just couldn't do anything about them. For decades i've watched them every step of the way, while powerless to actually do anything to stop them.
Our laws and our humanity protected them more than they deserved.
“religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.”
Kennedy knows this but did not add the words ‘at their own risk and fear of death.’ We are there, it is just not evident yet. Roberts and now Kennedy. The wrong people were chosen to be in our foxhole.
The Franklin Roosevelt judiciary appointments have so badly damaged the structure of the legal system, that it had gotten very difficult to find a lawyer untainted by the pollution Roosevelt unleashed.
He tainted the law schools, and the poisoned trees thereafter bore poisoned fruit.
They can so long as they do so in private. The pervs have the public arena and religious people must submit or lose their jobs.
We’ve already had several visit. They’re pretty easy to identify. Since 90% of the congrgations of churches in America are 200 or less members they stick out like sore thumbs. They could infiltrate many of the mega churches pretty easily because of the large number of visitors but I doubt they would hear the type of contoversial messages they are looking for because most of them stick to safe, non-offensive topics. Sadly most of the mega churches I’ve visited are spritually dead and dogmatic in nature.
I’d be making plans for those visitors to disappear.
Permanently.
In all the back and forth in the aftermath of this decision, what I am NOT seeing is any effort from the homosexual community seeking to calm our fears of religious persecution, other than to say we’re making it up.
This is why this needed to be a legislative decision, where the opposing sides could have put safeguards into place in order to get enough votes for approval. As sloppy as our system is, there is that.
> I’d be making plans for those visitors to disappear.
Permanently.
We just treat them well so they have nothing to report. Its not like we’re chanting death to Iran or Syria. We alao advise the pastor if we spot any that appear to be Muslim, gay, atheist, etc...occassionaly we’ll take down plate numbers and run them to find out who they are. Not that often though.
I don’t know what “megachurches” you’re talking about, but our church has grown immensely in these past years and now we have about 5 thousand congregants and visitors every weekend. Our church has grown because the unadulterated Word is faithfully preached. We’ve had our share of negative press because our pastors do not at all avoid controversial topics, and they do not compromise the message.
Our pastor didn’t shrink back at all today.
Please be careful of painting us all with the same brush. At a time like this, we need to pull together.
You need to read Leviticus.
L
good point. They hid behind the laws, and now they are setting the laws.
Question is are we on the right ever going to get people who have balls in public office to fight these people or are just going to see the total end to America what we had come to love?
> Please be careful of painting us all with the same brush. At a time like this, we need to pull together.
Hence the reason I said “most” - “Sadly most of the mega churches I’ve visited are spritually dead and dogmatic in nature”. One that cones to mind I’m referring to a large Catholic church I was invited to awhile back. Huge but everything was ceremony and ritual and lots of “Hail Marys”. I just didn’t feel God in that church at all.
I think we in the right are going to put up with crap until we get to a certain point, and then we are going to push them into the sea.
They control the media and Academia, but we are the warrior class, and we control everything that really matters in a nation. If our group decides to ignore the technicalities of the law, their @$$es are toast.
Ok, well ok..::.
Vote for obama again. (Ya, 3rd term...)
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