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November 18, 2003
Union Of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations Protests Massachusetts Court
Recognition Of Same-Sex Marriages; Will
Legislature Protect Religious Liberty?
Today, the Union of Orthodox
Jewish Congregations of America – the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish
umbrella organization representing nearly 1,000 synagogues, protested a
decision by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts declaring that
state’s ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional. The case is Goodridge
v. Mass. Department of Public Health, and the Orthodox Union had filed a
friend of the court brief urging the court not to take this step.
The Orthodox Union had supported the contention advanced by the State of
Massachusetts that it possesses a compelling public interest in preserving
the time-honored institution of marriage in its traditional form. The
Orthodox Union recognizes that the secular law is a critical source of
moral policy in American society and that it must, therefore, reflect the
society’s moral consensus on this matter without the interference of the
judiciary. While the court has left it to the legislature to craft a law
implementing its ruling, the court opinion reformulates the common legal
definition of marriage to now mean “the voluntary union of two persons as
spouses, to the exclusion of all others.”
Moreover, even within the terms of the SJC’s opinion (see Footnote 29),
there is an open question now under Massachusetts law as to whether
communities or individuals who have constitutionally protected liberties
not to endorse same-sex unions will now be compelled to violate those
liberties or risk legal sanction.
Nathan J. Diament, the Union’s director of public policy and legal
counsel, issued the following statement:
The Jewish tradition has long recognized the centrality of the institution
of marriage, so much so that the term in Judaism for marriage is kiddushin
– or, ‘holiness’ – our most central aspiration. Moreover, traditional
Judaism recognizes that the institution of marriage is central to the
formation of a healthy society and the raising of children. Thus, we are
compelled to protest the ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts which now, by fiat, calls into question the consensus in
this country on the traditional institution of marriage.
Moreover, we are deeply concerned that, despite vague assurances, citizens
of Massachusetts who may have a longstanding constitutional liberty of
conscience and object to same sex unions may risk legal sanction under the
state’s laws if they fail to transgress their beliefs and follow the SJC’s
dictate. This is something the legislature must redress.
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