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Conservative Movement Votes on Same Sex Unions

Passes in a landslide

by
Dan Klein
May 31, 2012

The Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards has just—as in within the last few hours—passed a responsum (a rabbinical ruling) on same sex weddings including a template and model for a wedding ceremony and for marriage dissolutions. The motion passed, according to Amichai Lau-Lavie, the founding director of Storah Telling Inc., with 13 voting yes and one abstaining.

It was a dry, legalistic moment with but little smiles, a matter of business almost – and the meeting was adjourned immediately after. But I had tears in my eyes, the only gay man sitting in that room full of rabbis who were directly dealing with MY life and hopefully future ceremony – or at least the ones I’ll be leading…. ‘No trumpets!’ I said to one other student sitting next to me in the back of the room. “Pretend” he told me. And I did. And it was beautiful, like the joyful noise right after the groom breaks the glass.

Lau-Lavie goes into some of the nitty-gritty of the ruling and the contentions around them. Some of it is over my head, but the new model includes the original language of the 7 blessings, while other matters, like the language of the vows, are still being ironed out. Either way, first enjoy the Mazel Tovs because as Lau-Lavie notes, the rest is just details.