Shalom,
I wanted to comment on one small part of Olivia Friedman's request for comment on the above topic. She states at the end of her post:
Let's be clear that there are additional layers of complexity as she is a woman rather than a man so the implications within halakha (as understood by the Orthodox community) should she be living with a partner are different as well.
Which raises the very important issue of whether whether a halachic Orthodox community ought to treat female same sex conduct [FSSC] the same or different from male same sex conduct [MSSC]. Halacha treats them differently, both in terms of the severity of the offense and the category. FSSC is discussed in Even Hazer 20:2 and is the subject of a three sided dispute between Rambam, Perisha and many others about the nature of the sin, the seriousness of the violation, and even whether FSSC is a sexual sin at all or some other kind of sin or violation. MSSC is a sexual sin, one the arayot and is widely considered a yehareg ve'al yavor [See EH 24 and many other places].
One could -- in a purely halachic universe -- easily distinguish between FSSC and MSSC in both nature and seriousness of violation of Jewish law, and thus in considering what is the proper societal response within an Orthodox community to a violation of halacha.
On the other hand, the secular community that we live in make no such distinction and uses acronyms ["LGBT" and the like] which argue to treat such conduct as culturally a single phenomena. The push of secular culture is not to make this distinction.
Indeed, one generally does not see this distinction spoken about and I wonder what others think as well about whether this is an important distinction.
MJB
Michael J. Broyde
Professor of Law
Emory University School of Law
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2016 08:10PM by mlb.
