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Much of the gay left was deeply suspicious of this conservative-sounding reform two thirds of the country were opposed the religious right saw in the issue a unique opportunity for political leverage – and over time, they put state constitutional amendments against marriage equality on the ballot in countless states, and won every time. In fact, we lost and lost and lost again. And when we won, and got our first fact on the ground, we indeed faced exactly that backlash and all the major gay rights groups refused to spend a dime on protecting the breakthrough … and we lost. A local straight attorney from the ACLU, Dan Foley, took it up instead, one of many straight men and women who helped make this happen. No gay group had agreed to support the case, which was regarded at best as hopeless and at worst, a recipe for a massive backlash. Then a breakthrough in Hawaii, where the state supreme court ruled for marriage equality on gender equality grounds.

A young fellow named Evan Wolfson who had written a dissertation on the subject in 1983 got in touch, and the world immediately felt less lonely. “This is the loopiest idea ever to come down the pike,” he joked. It was Crossfire, as I recall, and Gary Bauer’s response to my rather earnest argument after my TNR cover-story on the matter was laughter.

ADD FALLING HEARTS TO BLOGGER TV

I remember one of the first TV debates I had on the then-strange question of civil marriage for gay couples. Let’s use this moment as a sign that we must come together, as a people, in acceptance, with understanding, with compassion, with love.First they ignore you. Seeing God’s hand as one of violence destroys our people. Vile thoughts leading to vile assertions must disappear. For the sake of the Jewish people, hatred of one another must end. Sinat chinam is alive in dark corners throughout Judaism. So, too, the results of sinat chinam fall at the feet of us all. Crashing safely on the deck of the egalitarian plaza, the debris scatter toward the feet of a woman in prayer. As loathsome as your comments are, the moment is not about you, it’s about the Jewish people.Ī stone of the Western Wall falls, loosened by years of sinat chinam. It is, indeed, time to examine your own heart. It’s time to stop examining the Wall for signs of God.

They add cracks among us here in Israel, as well. What makes the remnants of the Temple unstable? What erodes the Jewish people from beneath and behind, quietly but steadily loosening the stones of our heritage, our history and our lives?Ĭomments like yours – joining a litany of hatred from others in Israel – add cracks to the fractures between Israel and the Diaspora, in particular American Jewry. The questions come from the insight to view this moment as a metaphor. At the same time, the fall does raise questions. Let’s not interpret this as an act of God. This isn’t God’s hand neither a hand of hate nor a hand of love.Īs you said deputy mayor: “We must not explain and interpret natural phenomena as signs from heaven, as the ways of the Creator are hidden,” adding: “The timing and the location of the fall raise many questions.”Īgreed. The crashing of a boulder from the Wall is the dramatic end of a long and hidden process of failure, cracks that loosen the stone, shifts that erode integrity. It’s the belief that attempting to gain a few cheap political points by deriding liberal Jews has no cost, that it doesn’t add one more fracture to Klal Yisroel. It’s the belief that you can espouse hate for fellow Jews freely, without ramifications for the people of Israel. The sin of sinat chinam is the belief that hatred has no cost. A heart of love could see a loose stone falling from the Western Wall as a call to end the very sinat chinam that you so casually promote.ĭo you know the meaning of the words sinat chinam, deputy mayor? Sinat means “hatred.” Chinam means “free.” A heart of love could see God’s hand as a source of blessings. Only a heart of hate sees stones of the Western Wall as God’s weapons.ĭeputy mayor, if your heart weren’t black with sinat chinam – baseless hatred – you might see the fact that the stone didn’t fall on Tisha b’Av eve as a sign of God’s love for all Jewish people.Ī heart of love could have seen the random fall of a loose stone – coming after the holy day, with not a single injury – as a sign that God protects us all. Only a heart of hate looks at God’s hand as a fist. Only a heart of hate sees the random fall of a loose stone as a warning message to other Jews. I suggest that Reform leaders, Women of the Wall, and the other quarrel-mongers examine themselves, and not the Wall,” he said. “The falling of one of the Western Wall stones, so close to Tisha B’Av, and exactly at the location of the controversial prayer area, should be a red light for us all.

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