Can Jews Be Gay Or Not

By Karina Frost


Judaism is known to be one of the major religions in the world and is also known to have strict rules when it comes to homosexuality. Now the Jews are in fact one of the groups that do not condone homosexual acts because they consider it to be a sin. So if one is gay and Jew, then he will most likely ask himself can Jews be gay or not even if some of them are born like that.

Now the main teaching of Judaism when it comes to this aspect is that Jews are not against gays at all. What they do not allow would be the sexual acts that gays would commit with each other. So basically, what they are trying to say is that Jews are actually allowed to be homosexuals but they are just banned from committing any of the sexual acts that heterosexuals would do with each other.

Now the basis of this statement would actually be from the Bible itself as this is the book where the verses of God are all kept. Now if one would open his Bible to the book of Leviticus chapters eighteen verse twenty two, then he will be able to find the basis. This verse explicitly states that if a man lies in bed with another man like he would do with a woman, then he is committing a sin.

Now while there is no actual explanation as to why God made this commandment, many Rabbis did have their own interpretations. The most common one would be that when God created the world, he only created man and woman. So naturally, homosexuality is something that is unnatural to creation.

Of course since this claim had no basis, people were not convinced of its validity at all. Now Bar Kaparrah tried to make a conclusion about this issue in Talmud by stating another teaching in the Torah. He claims that the Torah emphasizes the importance of marriage and procreation with homosexuality posing as a threat to it.

Basically, the Torah strictly states that a man cannot be with another man as this is an abomination. So this might strike a question as to how they treat lesbians. Since the Torah only mentioned the union and sexual acts between two men, then most people would assume that lesbianism is allowed.

Now the Rabbis would actually teach that lesbianism is also not allowed as well. Of course their reason for saying so is that it is also an act of homosexuality which goes against procreation. However, lesbians are not put under as much pressure as gay men since lesbians are not explicitly mentioned in the Torah.

So the answer to the question based on the interpretations of this issue is that yes one can be a gay Jew. Since the Rabbis do realize that most gays are born that way, they do not condemn the people. They do however, condemn the act of homosexuality because it goes against the laws of their belief. So if one is gay or lesbian and is a Jew, he or she will not be condemned by the group but he or she must also not do any homosexual acts otherwise he or she will have committed a grave sin.




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