I was handed a children’s book to read that my friend Mendel’s kid had brought home from the library. The book was about penguins in a zoo, it talked about all the penguins that swam and hung out with each other. It stated that there was Sally and Joe and other penguins that were girls and boys that liked each other. Ok very nice, couples and all teaching kids about liking boys or girls at 7 years old, fine I guess they call them tweens nowadays. Ok Mndel I know where this is going I said to him as I read on. Then it came to Roy and Silo who played and swam and did everything together, but they weren’t like the other penguins, you see they were both boys and they didn’t like girls, after a while the other penguins realized that they were in love. It was actually such a nice story, then the other penguins had eggs to sit on and warm but Silo and Roy didn’t. So the caretaker had an egg that needed to be warmed so he gave it to Silo and Roy the gay penguin couple and they had an egg of their own. Then the egg hatched and they called it Tango, because it takes two to tango. Which actually makes no sense because it takes a male and female to tango hence have children you know the deal.
Well Mendel and his wife were disturbed by this book that their daughter had brought home. No an 8 year old would probably not understand the meaning or the reason for such a book but it brings me back to my a story about my old man. We were walking past the Church on 86th and West end avenue in New York City by my house and he started talking about how there was a conservative shull being renovated on 88th street so in the meantime they were using a church. Very interesting since Jews are halachically not even allowed to enter a church do to avodah zara. So anyways the shull wanted to get a gay Rabbi but the conservative Jews did not ordain gay Rabbis at the time (last week the JTS-Jewish Theological Seminary, decided they would ordain gay Rabbis.) so my old man started ranting about how they will just become Reform if they cant have what they want and sure enough that’s what happened. So any way, since last weeks JTS decision which I was surprised by because I thought Conservative Jews already ordained gay Rabbis, all the conservative Jews that became Reform Jews can switch back.
So anyway what are my thoughts on trying to indoctrinate children to thinking that its alright to be gay. Well it’s funny because I am actually not so against it, think about it, what different is it then teaching your children that blacks and whites are the same besides color of skin. Well it’s not normal, what is normal? There have been gays for thousands of years, even Noach’s sons were gay, but you see back in the day folks were tortured or killed for being “different”, so now at least when your child sees two men or women holding hands they wont yell obscenities. I hope some people will give me their thoughts on this issue. I want open minded real comments, not comments about how the Torah forbids this and that. I know this, I think its hypocritical for there to be gay Rabbis. How can someone preach if they don’t practice, unless they use the new chumashim that have footnotes about the prohibition of homosexuality in the torah and how it is now legal and all, then I guess you can justify. I personally will go with the constitutionalist approach and stick with the old living document, when you start changing things around who knows how far one may go in the name of “Progress”?
Now do we really want our children thinking that being gay is fine and normal? But then again people really don’t choose to be gay? Its not a lifestyle choice its more of a I don’t want to say genetic disposition because that is not proven, but it is sometimes natural or maybe the cause of abuse or some other sort of familiar situation, but to say people choose to be gay is quite far fetched in most cases. Also by teaching our children open mindedness, is this necessarily saying that according to Jews its ok. Parents teach children that they cannot eat in McDonalds so to they can teach them about the halchic prohibitions of homosexuality. You see the frum community cannot keep everything under the table or blech or wherever they tend to hide things that are not so kosher. You know things like domestic abuse, kids doing drugs, HIV in the frum community, Rabbi’s sleeping around, or any other number of things that are readily visible in the frum community but are hush hush.
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