But the CCAR has unmistakably added its institutional voice to the growing acceptance of homosexuality as a way of life rather than merely a biological fact. All that matters in public life and civil life. The question in need of an answer is whether it matters in Jewish life. Even before today's vote, Reform rabbis had the autonomy to officiate at commitment ceremonies for gays and lesbians, and several hundred of the Central Conference's 1,800 members do so. As the most liberal group of whites in America, Jews already support laws protecting homosexuals from discrimination in housing, employment, and other aspects of public life.
Recent history offers two wildly divergent prospects.
One, the feminist revolution in Judaism, shows how a more inclusive policy contributed to a boom in study, involvement, and observance that has affected every branch of organized Jewry. A few decades from now, we will know which way the Central Conference's approval of homosexual marriage played out. It is appropriate that the resolution adopted this week emerged from the Women's Rabbinic Network, the association of female rabbis in the Reform movement. Their experience offers a best-case scenario for a major shift in dogma. When the Reform denomination began ordaining women in 1973, it was nearly alone in the position.