And not hearing any substantive, worthy objection . . . (at the 2:37 mark). See James Nichols's report at Huffington Post, too.
Also at Huffington Post, Rabbis Matthew Gewirtz, Howard Stahl, Karen Perolman, and Joshua Stanton reflect about what the arrival of marriage equality in New Jersey might mean for the state's Jewish community:
Our Jewish tradition preaches radical acceptance of those who are made to feel as though strangers. Thirty-six times in the Torah, we are commanded to treat "strangers" with kindness and respect. How long, until this day, have our LGBTQ brothers and sisters been made to feel as though strangers in our state? How long have they been made to feel as though second-class citizens with unequal status under the law?
I can't imagine the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops making any such statement, can you? Though they claim to read the same scriptures cited by their Jewish sisters and brothers in the passage above . . . .
Passages that, to my ear, seem core to the Jewish and Christian scriptures, foundational for both traditions, such that ignoring them or throwing their words over our shoulders constitutes discarding the tradition itself, in its most fundamental meanings . . . .
