Why Do Straight People Go To Gay Synagogues?
Friday June 5, 2009
This reminds me of the old joke about the reporter who asked the famous bank robber, Willy Sutton, why he robbed banks. Sutton replied, "Because that's where the money is". People attend a particular synagogue because that's where the meaning...
Filed Under: gay synagogues, meaningful prayer, prayer, synagogue, synagogue attendance, trends in jewish life
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About Windows & Doors
Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Listed as one of the nation’s 50 most influential rabbis in Newsweek, and a regular commentator on Court TV, he is the creator of the popular series, Building Bridges, airing on Bridges TV, and the co-host of the weekly radio show, Hirschfield and Kula. More About Brad
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Of course you can’t have a gay synagogue, or a gay church or straight synagogue for that matter, but you can have a synagogue led by a gay Rabbi, or a synagogue with a predominantly gay congregation.
DIRECT QUOTE FROM CITED ARTICLE:
“Although there are no precise statistics quantifying this trend, it is unmistakable to anyone who visits one of these congregations, and, in an era of shrinking synagogue affiliation, prompts the question of why these institutions are growing among a population they do not even try to serve.”
These synagogues don’t try to serve the straight population’s spiritual needs? Do they actually say this prayer is being offered up for only our gay members? This ritual is only for gay members? This talk is only for gays; everyone else go outside? No, of course they don’t.
Your Name is correct that there really isn't such a thing as a gay synagogue or gay church. However, there are synagogues and churches whose primary mission is to serve gay people who have all too often been unwelcome or in some way denigrated in many of the traditional alternatives.
Such synagogues and churches can be attractive to people other than their initial primary target audience because of the (comparatively) radical inclusion they practice.
PERHAPS BECAUSE OF PURE CURIOSITY THEY GO TO GAY SYNAGOGUES.
I am so pleased to see this happening in the progressive Jewish community, just as it is happening in the progressive Christian community. Thank you for sharing this artice.
Peace/Shalom
GLBT-oriented congregations are this generation's version of the feminist-friendly congregations of thirty years ago--in both cases, a congregation chooses to address itself to the needs and concerns of a previously ignored subgroup, and in the process, makes itself friendly to all kinds of other people who don't quite fit into the "official" model of Jewish congregants. For instance, in studies of the influence of feminism on Jewish congregations, we have ascertained that not only are women learning Torah and liturgical skills, but so are men who did not have the standard yeshiva or day school education and have felt marginalized as a result. Encouraging the participation of women had the unexpected side effect of encouraging the participation of men with lower levels of Jewish education. I suspect that the same kind of thing is happening in the GLBT congregation in which I now participate.
I am not a jew, but have been a member of the (largely gay) Metropolitan Community Church for more than a quarter of a century. Our congregations are increasingly heterosexual because, as the article stated, "Inclusion is inclusion".
There's a Christian saying, "Whosoever will may come." That pretty much sums up MCC's theology. We humans don't get to decide.
People reject the scorn, vilification, marginalization, reduction, demeaning, diminishment, debasement of God's gay and lesbian children that is peretrated so often by the 'religious' 'right'. Check out the myriad comparisons - right here on Beliefnet - of gay relationships to "marryin' a plant" (or a "rock", or a "bicycle", or a "child"), or to bestiality, necrophilia, incest, cannibalism, rape, murder, etc. If that's what some 'str8' people of faith do in the name of their Lord, then it's easy to see why some str8 folk go to 'gay synagogues' or churches. Thinking people see (and, thankfully, reject) such lies and understand it to be what it is - hatred, pure and simple. (Not to mention that bearing false witness is a sin. One of the 'Big 10' if I'm not mistaken.)
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