A minister friend of mine told me the story of these were four ministers who were sitting at lunch together at a class reunion – one turns to the others and says, “You I can tell…I have a problem with stealing…from time to time when no one is looking, I take some money from the collection plate on Sunday.”

The third says, “OK, You I can tell….I have a problem with drinking…whenever I think no one is looking, I drink from the Communion cup.”

“I have a terrible gossip problem…and I can’t wait for this lunch to be over!”

There were the passions of Islamic Fundamentalists beheading captives and murdering hundreds of innocent people throughout the world.

And the passion of Palestinian suicide bombers deliberately murdering innocent Israeli women and children and families.

And in the midst of all this was a different kind of passion. It was the passion of people in love.

As you know, sadly just last month the California Supreme Court nullified all of them – nearly 4,000 marriages, saying that the Mayor of San Francisco had exceeded his authority in granting them in the first place. In one day, in one moment, those 7 judges invalidated the lives and love of 8,000 loving men and women.

And unfortunately, they use the same Bible, our Bible to “prove” that the very existence of homosexuality itself let alone marriage between same-sex partners is literally contrary to the will of God. They try to prove it by quoting our Torah.

Many of you know how involved I have been over the years in interfaith work. I’ve even written several books about interfaith marriage and for years have been President of the interfaith Palisades Ministerial Association.

Their favorite is to hold up placards and sport bumper stickers quoting Chapter 18 Verse 22 of Leviticus where it says if a man lies with another man in the manner of a woman it is a toeva, an “abomination.” Yet they conveniently ignore that the very same God in the very same Torah just 7 chapters earlier uses the very same word, toeva, “abomination” for anyone who eats lobster, crab, scallops or any other shellfish. Do they really think that God is only serious when it comes to gays and lesbians, but just kidding about shrimp?

Or that in Chapter 20 of Exodus God commands that any child who even insults his parents should be put to death?

Or that in Chapter 21 of Exodus God says it’s OK for a man to sell his daughter into slavery?

Of course they don’t pay attention to or follow those Biblical commandments even though they are handed down by the very same God in the very same sacred book. Because the world is not the same today as it was 3,000 years ago – and the fact is that everyone picks and chooses the Biblical ideas, commandments, values, and ethics, that they believe either matter or don’t matter today.

OK, that was the easy part. I suspect that all of us feel pretty much the same about Bible-toting, Bible-quoting religious fundamentalists regardless of the religious tradition they claim to represent.

Well, our fundamentalist tendencies don’t manifest themselves in taking every story in the Torah literally. You probably don’t believe the world was created in 6 days, or that Noah saved the world by putting two of every animal in a big boat, or that Adam and Eve were the first humans and Eve was created out of Adam’s rib.

When I was in elementary school, we would bring money to school each week called, “milk money.” You brought in milk money and every day you were given a carton of milk. It was homogenized, but I don’t remember ever seeing the word “homogenized” on the carton. Instead, printed in large, bold letters across the bottom of every single carton of milk I ever drank in school, were the words, “HOMO MILK.”
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But “being a HOMO” isn’t something you decide one day to be. It’s something you are. I have gay and lesbian friends who didn’t know what label to put on it but knew they were different when they were 8 years old and younger! Imagine the horror of finally putting the label on the feelings they had and realizing, “Oh my God, I am that awful creature that everyone makes fun of. I am a HOMO.”

By now some of you are probably asking yourselves, “Why is he talking about homosexuality on the High Holy Days? Aren’t there more important more global issues to discuss? After all, this really affects only a tiny minority of the population.” Or does it?

They are our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our friends, our doctors, our lawyers, our accountants, our teachers, our rabbis and cantors and Jewish educators. They serve on synagogue boards, sing in the choir, car pool their kids to youth group meetings and religious school.

They know that homophobia, denying equal civil and social and human rights to gays and lesbians in our society has become perhaps the last socially acceptable bigotry in our country – even among Jews who should know better.

I am talking about homosexuality today, because the High Holy Days are a time of self-examination. To rediscover who we are, what our values are, iH and what our values should be as individuals and as a community.

First, the remarkable idea that Judaism brought to the world over 3,000 years ago, that every human being is created B’TZELEM ELOHIM, in the image of God. It doesn’t say in Genesis, that God created the human being in the divine image EXCEPT gays and lesbians – there is no “except” in the Torah, and there shouldn’t be in this synagogue or in our country either. The idea that every human being is created in the divine image is an affirmation of the inherent dignity of every human being as well – gay or straight.

Third, I believe in the Biblical imperative of TZEDEK, TZEDEK TIRDOF, “Justice, Justice shall you pursue.” The fight for civil, social and human rights for gays and lesbians today, may in fact be the emerging civil rights issue of this decade.

Fifth, I recognize that the first mitzvah in the Torah is PERU U’RVU, “Be fruitful and multiply,” and that we ought to give support to gay and lesbian couples who marry, have and adopt children and raise them in loving, nurturing, Jewish homes, and I am proud that there are a number of such families in our congregation.

They already spend enough of their lives living with rejection – the mitzvah of SHALOM BAIT is an intimate antidote to that rejection both within the home and the home that is our synagogue community, as well.

They wrote the ceremony themselves, and it was one of the most loving and spiritual experiences of my life. They have been part of this synagogue community ever since and just a few months ago I had the privilege of officiating with Cantor Frenkel at Fanny’s Bat Mitzvah at KI. And she is a remarkable, loving, fabulous kid. That’s what our synagogue ought to be all about.

And just a few months ago I went to SM hospital at 7:30 in the morning to be part of a circumcision ceremony baby Jonas – born to Kathleen and Lisa, a lesbian couple in our congregation – their second child – and another of those profound and inspiring rabbinic experiences.

It was a moment when God was invited into the family and we knew that something profoundly sacred was taking place.

But unlike every other couple you know, a month later I received a detailed reference form from an “adoption service provider” because the only way that Lisa, the mother who didn’t carry the child will have any legal rights, or claim or legal relationship with Jonas is if she applies to adopt him and is accepted for adoption.

I started with a Christmas story, so I’ll end with one as well. This is the true story of a couple in Brooklyn, New York. The Thomas family and their little boy, George Thomas, who was 4 years old.

The parents were embarrassed. The old man just winked at the boy, patted him on the head, and went on his way.

As he walked back down the steps they said, “Goodbye, Rabbi Podolsky. Have a Merry Christmas.”

And so here I am on Rosh Hashana, our time to renew and begin again, affirming the values I cherish and that I believe are right for our congregation and community as well. I want to begin this New Year with a blessing, Supreme Court or not, I’d like to invite the same-sex couples in our congregation who have gotten married this year to stand here with me for a blessing