As with other branches of Judaism debating the acceptability of sexual orientations other than heterosexuality, Conservative Jews faced both long-standing rabbinic prohibitions on homosexual conduct as well as increasing demands for change in the movement's policies toward gays, bisexuals, and lesbians.
The CJLS consistently refused to pass several proposed takkanot concerning the Levitical prohibitions on male-male anal sex, but also on all forms of homosexual intimacy, in general.
In 1992, the CJLS action affirmed its traditional prohibition on homosexual conduct, blessing same-sex unions, and ordaining openly gay, bisexual, and lesbian clergy.
Rather, a widely held view is that Rabbis must be an example for the community, and it would be in direct opposition to the prohibition of gay sex to ordain someone who violates that Jewish law.
A few years later, Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff used these arguments in his case for re-evaluating Conservative Judaism's stand on sexual orientation but held that Artson's paper was insufficiently halakhically rigorous.
It also represents a sharp change from previous Conservative policy, which in 1993 had adopted a consensus position reaffirming a blanket prohibition on homosexual conduct while welcoming gay, bisexual, and lesbian people as members.
One responsum, by Rabbis Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel Nevins, and Avram Reisner, reduced the extent of traditional restrictions and substantially changed Conservative views on homosexual conduct.
It maintained traditional prohibitions on homosexual conduct and forbade Conservative rabbis from blessing same-sex unions and rabbinical schools from ordaining gay, bisexual, and lesbian clergy.
[5] On December 10, Rabbi Roth published an editorial in the Jewish Theological Seminary's newsletter JTS News providing some of the reasoning behind his responsum and explaining why he resigned following the CJLS's vote.
"[6] According to Rabbi Roth, the central problem with the permissive responsum is that it adopted a claim that the Biblical prohibition on homosexual conduct is limited to anal sex only based on insufficient support in precedent, the view of only "one sage".
From the traditionalist point of view, acceptance of the hypothesis that the Torah was transmitted through multiple manuscripts and redactors in no way changes its status as a Divine, "legally infallible" document, a "given" reality to which any theological theory must conform: Rabbi Leonard Levy's responsum, adopted as a minority opinion by six votes, delineated ways in which to ensure that gays and lesbians would be accorded human dignity and a respected place in Conservative communities and institutions while maintaining the authority of the traditional prohibitions against same-sex sexual activity.
[9] The fundamental premise of the dissenting opinion was that the Torah is not infallible, legally or otherwise, but is subject to reconsideration based on subsequent knowledge: Rabbis Myron Geller, Robert Fine, and David Fine wrote a dissent arguing for the complete abolition of strictures against homosexual conduct and explicit recognition of same-sex religious commitment ceremonies on grounds that strictures were no longer socially relevant and religious support was now socially required.
The opinion characterized Halakha as The responsum argued that so regarded, Halakah can and should be updated to reflect changed values and social circumstances as they arise.
On the one hand, four members of the Committee, Rabbis Joel Roth, Leonard Levy, Mayer Rabinowitz, and Joseph Prouser, resigned from the CJLS following adoption of the change.
While the Biblical Hebrew phrase for the act is obscure and likely an ancient euphemism,[18][19] a long history of traditional Jewish interpretation agrees that it specifically means "anal sex between men.
[21] While they are never discussed directly in Torah, the law has been extended to sexual acts between women based on principles of religious interpretation, or an assumption by some rabbis that the unspecified "sins of the Egyptians" referred to in Lev.
[25] The Reform movement recognizes same-sex marriages as including kiddushin, and typically alters the ritual to be mutual for both heterosexual and homosexual couples.