A CANADIAN RABBI SPEAKS OUT: Eliezer Ben-Porat

...The sages of the Talmud recognized the special character of marriage by defining it as kiddushin, sanctification. All traditional religious people subscribe to this fundamental principle of the sanctity of the union between man and woman, and see it as a divinely given moral estate not subject to human modification. Indeed, the exclusivity of this relationship as a moral principle is endorsed by many, perhaps most, Canadians. Yet people are now led to believe that if they stick to this moral principle they are intolerant.

The debate does not revolve around the monetary rights or social benefits of same-sex partners. These have already been granted. What we are witnessing here is not progress and liberalism but rather the imposition of the philosophy of moral relativism on all of us. We are all called, nay coerced, to label some unions marriage that we simply cannot. The promise by the Prime Minister that the clergy will not be forced to administer same-sex marriage does not give us any comfort. What about those who are not members of the clergy? Why should they be compelled to call this marriage? ...

Some suggest that the purpose of marriage is solely to produce progeny. However, while procreation is certainly an important component in marriage, it is not essential for its meaningfulness. The reason that marriage is specifically restricted to a man and a woman is because man and woman, each one on their own incomplete, through their union complete each other and create a wholesome togetherness.

In The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm writes: "The male-female polarity is ... the basis for interpersonal creativity. This is obvious biologically in the fact that the union of sperm and ovum is the basis for the birth of a child. But in the purely psychic realm it is not different; in the love between man and woman each of them is reborn... The same polarity of the male and female principle exists in nature ... It is the polarity of the earth and rain, of the river and the ocean, of night and day, of darkness and light, of matter and spirit." ...

The 15th-century Jewish Spanish philosopher Rabbi Isaac Arama points that, as far as morality is concerned, there is a difference between the private domain of the individual and the public arena of the judiciary. It is one thing what one does in the privacy of his own quarters, but it is entirely another matter if the law of the country sanctions it, and defines it as an ideal.

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posted by Eve at 1:52 PM VOTE

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