The Chief Rabbi of France says what we often forget to say.
Gilles Bernheim
A great many of our fellow citizens see demands for homosexual marriage as just one more step in the democratic struggle against injustice and discrimination, a continuation of the fight against racism. It is in the name of equality, of open-mindedness, of being progressive and right-thinking that we are asked to accept this challenge to the foundations of our society. It seems, moreover, on the basis of public opinion polls, that this challenge is already accepted by a majority of our fellow citizens and thus the question of its establishment as a matter of law has not provoked a debate worthy of the momentous issues at stake.
I believe, on the contrary, that it is a matter of the greatest importance to make clear the true implications of the negation of sexual difference and to debate publicly what is at stake rather than falling back on principles, such as equality, that flatter those who set themselves up as their standard bearers, even though the way these principles are invoked to justify the homosexual-marriage agenda does not stand up to critical scrutiny. This subject deserves better than the court of political correctness, whose authority, advocates of homosexual marriage hope, will prevail until the law is voted on—a tribunal they defend by means of disqualifying caricatures against anyone who dares to question their project and their motives.
I speak as a rabbi, and more particularly as the Chief Rabbi of France. I am not the spokesman of a group of individuals but the voice of French Judaism in its religious dimension. Like other rabbis, I am a reader, a teacher, and a commentator on texts of Jewish wisdom that are part of a great tradition of dialogue, of dialectics, of hermeneutics—in a word, of pluralism. I have always understood myself as duty-bound to intellectual engagement in the great choices of history and first of all in the great choices faced by my country. Thus I am necessarily concerned by the proposed legalization of homosexual marriage, as well as by plans to change our laws so as to accommodate homosexual parenting and adoption. This is why I reject the stance of a minority of religious leaders who withdraw from the debate on the grounds that we have the possibility of preserving marriage as a religious institution distinct from civil marriage. There is nothing to admire in such withdrawal when it serves the interest of those who avoid debates.
My choice to speak up is the studied expression of the solidarity that binds me to the national community of which I am a part. It also reflects my sense of responsibility to uphold the universal principles that France has forged and defended over the centuries, principles on which the Republic was founded and without which it cannot endure. If non-Jews choose to hear me out, they will receive what I say in light of their own personal judgment, their own system of values, and their own identity as religious, agnostic, or atheist. It will be up to them to recognize any wisdom or moral value in what I say.
It will surprise no one that my worldview is guided by the Bible and by the rabbinic commentaries. On the key subjects of sexuality and reproduction, it is based on the complementarity between man and woman. In this essay, I have referred only to the Book of Genesis and thus have chosen not to mention the prohibitions against homosexuality included in Leviticus, for it seems to me that what is at stake now is not homosexuality, which is a fact, a reality, whatever my view of it as a rabbi might be. What is at stake is the risk of irreversibly scrambling genealogies, as well as legal and social statuses (the child-as-subject becoming child-as-object) and identities—a confusion that would be harmful to society as a whole and that would lose sight of the general interest in seeking the advantage of a tiny minority.
Let me add that my biblical vision of the world, in which justice is a central principle, leads me naturally to condemn and to fight strongly against the physical and verbal attacks of which homosexual persons are victims, in the same way that I strongly condemn and fight against racist and anti-Semitic speeches and deeds.
Read more at First Things.
I believe, on the contrary, that it is a matter of the greatest importance to make clear the true implications of the negation of sexual difference and to debate publicly what is at stake rather than falling back on principles, such as equality, that flatter those who set themselves up as their standard bearers, even though the way these principles are invoked to justify the homosexual-marriage agenda does not stand up to critical scrutiny. This subject deserves better than the court of political correctness, whose authority, advocates of homosexual marriage hope, will prevail until the law is voted on—a tribunal they defend by means of disqualifying caricatures against anyone who dares to question their project and their motives.
I speak as a rabbi, and more particularly as the Chief Rabbi of France. I am not the spokesman of a group of individuals but the voice of French Judaism in its religious dimension. Like other rabbis, I am a reader, a teacher, and a commentator on texts of Jewish wisdom that are part of a great tradition of dialogue, of dialectics, of hermeneutics—in a word, of pluralism. I have always understood myself as duty-bound to intellectual engagement in the great choices of history and first of all in the great choices faced by my country. Thus I am necessarily concerned by the proposed legalization of homosexual marriage, as well as by plans to change our laws so as to accommodate homosexual parenting and adoption. This is why I reject the stance of a minority of religious leaders who withdraw from the debate on the grounds that we have the possibility of preserving marriage as a religious institution distinct from civil marriage. There is nothing to admire in such withdrawal when it serves the interest of those who avoid debates.
My choice to speak up is the studied expression of the solidarity that binds me to the national community of which I am a part. It also reflects my sense of responsibility to uphold the universal principles that France has forged and defended over the centuries, principles on which the Republic was founded and without which it cannot endure. If non-Jews choose to hear me out, they will receive what I say in light of their own personal judgment, their own system of values, and their own identity as religious, agnostic, or atheist. It will be up to them to recognize any wisdom or moral value in what I say.
It will surprise no one that my worldview is guided by the Bible and by the rabbinic commentaries. On the key subjects of sexuality and reproduction, it is based on the complementarity between man and woman. In this essay, I have referred only to the Book of Genesis and thus have chosen not to mention the prohibitions against homosexuality included in Leviticus, for it seems to me that what is at stake now is not homosexuality, which is a fact, a reality, whatever my view of it as a rabbi might be. What is at stake is the risk of irreversibly scrambling genealogies, as well as legal and social statuses (the child-as-subject becoming child-as-object) and identities—a confusion that would be harmful to society as a whole and that would lose sight of the general interest in seeking the advantage of a tiny minority.
Let me add that my biblical vision of the world, in which justice is a central principle, leads me naturally to condemn and to fight strongly against the physical and verbal attacks of which homosexual persons are victims, in the same way that I strongly condemn and fight against racist and anti-Semitic speeches and deeds.
Read more at First Things.
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