They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. If Judaism is a way of life, a way of responding to reality, then the phenomenon of gay and lesbian relationships must openly addressed. Every major church, every social critic, every newspaper, every journal is focused on this phenomenon. It has been placed prominently on the agenda of the great political debate before the November election.
Demographers suggest that the same percentage applies to other people including our own.
If then there are 6 million Jews in America it may be conservatively estimated that 600,000 gay and lesbians are in our midst. Six hundred thousand is a large figure, as many as all of the Jews in all of Los Angeles. The issue is presently being debated in the Rabbinical Assembly, the Jewish Law Committee of the Conservative Movement and among Biblical scholars and masters of the law. My interest in the matter is more personal, less academic. It began a few years ago.