Tag: North Carolina

Categories
LGBT

LGBT Pride Month: Hungry for Justice

It was quite a scene on the fourth day of Pesach in Raleigh, North Carolina. Rabbis from around the state (including several CCAR colleagues) had gathered in the State Legislative Building for a press conference denouncing H.B. 2 and calling upon the Legislature to repeal it. Following the press conference, we reassembled in the chapel for what we all assume was the first kriat hallel to be proclaimed in that space. Six rabbis each introduced a psalm with a reflection and then led an overflowing chapel in song and prayer.

I had the privilege of framing the service, and shared these words:

One of the things that makes the recitation of the Hallel come alive for me is the frequent and easy alternating between person. Like the psalms as a whole, there’s no pinning Hallel down as about either the individual or the collective. One moment we’re singing out as Israel, or even more expansively as “all who revere the Eternal One;” the next, we’re lamenting on our own, bringing forth our private pain. Psalm by psalm, and even verse by verse, the shift occurs.

What I learn from that shift is this: it’s for each of us to locate our own story within the larger story of a People, and all people. Standing on the Bicentennial Mall yesterday afternoon in that fusion coalition of black, brown and white, straight and queer, diverse in gender identity and expression, in means, in political views, I felt keenly who I was (a privileged, white, cisgender male, a Jew, a rabbi) and also with whom I stood. Standing here now, I feel my place no less keenly. Praying the Hallel today I am a small but not insignificant part of my people, of God’s people gone forth from Egypt, crossing the Jordan, marching to the Promised Land.

But I am also present with my own personal story of liberation. And my story is bound up with my son’s story. H.B. 2 seeks to use him as a wedge in a cynical political ploy for votes and power. In doing so, it makes him, and all transgender people in North Carolina, less safe. And while I’d be here with my colleagues today standing against H.B. 2 were I still the father of three daughters, as I pray this Hallel I will give thanks for the personal redemption that’s come to my family since my son learned more fully who he is, and began teaching the rest of us.

Pride Month is about celebrating newly-won rights and standing up where those rights are under attack. As a Reform Rabbi in North Carolina, and the father of a transgender son, I enter this month determined, and hungry for justice.

—

Rabbi Larry Bach serves Judea Reform Congregation in Durham, North Carolina.

Categories
News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

Praying for Rain: Marriage Equality in North Carolina

As we move toward Sh’mini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, we begin to pray for rain.  We change from morid hatal to mashiv haruach umorid hagashem.  So this is a good time to recall that other outpouring called for by the prophet Amos: v’yigal kamayim mishpat utz’dakah k’nachal eitan, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Just before Shabbat, justice and righteousness began to roll down in North Carolina.  Earlier this year, the CCAR and several of our North Carolina colleagues joined in a litigation to challenge Amendment One, the prohibition on same sex marriage in the state.  Several other colleagues wanted to join but could not do so for technical legal reasons.  The challenge had two elements.  First, it claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution barred a state law that prohibited same sex couples from marrying.  Second, it claimed that, even if that ban was otherwise constitutional, it ran afoul of the First Amendment, in that it threatened clergy who performed religious-only same sex marriages with civil penalties.

Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that overturned Virginia’s ban on same sex marriage on Fourteenth Amendment grounds.  Because the Fourth Circuit also covers North Carolina, that meant that, as Daniel would have understood, the handwriting was on the wall.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, who was hearing our case, ruled that Amendment One violated the Fourteenth Amendment and had to be struck down.  This meant that he never had to decide the First Amendment claim.  It also meant that starting Friday in some North Carolina counties, and Monday in others, registrars began to issue licenses for same sex couples to marry, and marriage ceremonies started to take place.  Yesterday, another federal judge in North Carolina came to the same conclusion in another case.  Marriage equality in North Carolina is now a reality.

TomAlpertI used to practice law and serve as the amicus brief coordinator for the CCAR.  This meant that I had the privilege of being involved in our decision to take part in this case.  When I read Judge Cogburn’s ruling, I felt pride that our CCAR leadership and our courageous rabbis helped bring about this change for the better.  The attorneys in this case donated their time, and I felt gratitude for them.  And as I read of couples finally being able to marry, I sensed the rush of righteousness all the way from North Carolina to my home in Massachusetts.  May we continue to be inundated with it as we pray for rain at this season.

Rabbi Thomas Alpert serves Temple Etz Chaim in Franklin, MA. He was ordained from the New York campus of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in 2000 after a previous career as a lawyer.

Categories
News Social Justice

The North Carolina Marriage Equality Lawsuit: Moving with Momentum to Affirm a Civil Right

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  That is what the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., memorably wrote.  When it comes to marriage equality, that arc is bending more and more steeply, more and more rapidly, toward its goal.

This spring, I had the honor of assisting the CCAR in its decision to participate as a plaintiff in General Synod of the United Church of Christ v. Cooper.  This lawsuit challenges two related provisions in North Carolina law.  One prohibits same sex marriage.  The other makes it a crime to officiate at a prohibited marriage ceremony.  We contend that, read together, these two laws have the effect of threatening rabbis who participate in religious only ceremonies of kiddushin for same sex couples.  We also claim that the United States Constitution outlaws the prohibition on same sex marriage in general.

Last week came the news that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had affirmed the decision of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Bostic v. Rainey.  This case challenged Virginia’s ban on same sex marriage, and first the district court and now the court of appeals have ruled that this ban is unconstitutional.

To explain why this is important in the North Carolina case, I need to say a few words about how the federal court system is organized.  At the bottom are the district courts, which hold trials and make initial decisions.  One step above them are the twelve circuit courts of appeal, which hear appeals from the district courts.  Above the circuit courts of appeal is only the Supreme Court.

North Carolina is in the Fourth Circuit, the same circuit as Virginia.  Any rules of law that come out in the Virginia litigation would also normally apply in cases from North Carolina.  The decision in the Virginia case thus spells very bad news for the ban on same sex marriage in North Carolina.  Indeed, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, the “Cooper” who is the named defendant in our case, announced yesterday that he no longer believes that he can defend the North Carolina ban in court.

More generally, I am amazed by how quickly and how steadily federal and other courts are dispatching bans on same sex marriage on broad constitutional grounds.  Thirteen short months ago, in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court held the federal Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional.  Since that time, federal district courts in sixteen states, two federal circuit courts of appeal, and three state courts have held that bans on same sex marriage are unconstitutional.  Not one case has gone the other way.  I cannot think of another example where the law has moved with this much momentum to affirm a civil right.

The struggle is not over.  Our case in North Carolina remains active, and there will almost certainly be an appeal of the Fourth Circuit decision.  But that arc is bending hard toward justice.  I am proud to be a member of an organization that is helping to bend it there.

Rabbi Thomas Alpert serves Temple Etz Chaim in Franklin, MA. He was ordained from the New York campus of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in 2000 after a previous career as a lawyer. 

Categories
News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

Joining the North Carolina Marriage Equality Lawsuit: Living Up to Our Values

I am proud to be a Reform Rabbi.  This week the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) has joined the marriage equality lawsuit in North Carolina.  This past week the CCAR joined the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a plaintiff in overturning the same-sex marriage ban in North Carolina.  This is significant in several ways.

First, the CCAR has supported marriage equality for many years. As early as 1996 the Conference is on record as supporting Civil Marriage Equality. And then again in the year 2000 in at our convention in Greensboro, North Carolina the CCAR went on record to endorse officiation of rabbis at Jewish and civil marriages.  So it is fitting that we join this lawsuit in North Carolina.

Secondly, the CCAR and our Pacific region (PARR) have been involved in marriage equality cases in California, Washington, New Mexico, Massachusetts and the Windsor case at the Federal level. However, we have not been the plaintiffs in these cases.  Instead we filed friend of the court briefs as a religious group whose religious rights were being denied.

But with the case in North Carolina we are actually suing the state as the co-plaintiff.  This is taking an important step forward in our advocacy and support for marriage equality.  One of the things that makes this case so unique among the marriage equality lawsuits that have been filed around the country is that this one hinges on the rights of clergy to perform gay and lesbian weddings.  The North Carolina law specifically forbids clergy from performing even a commitment ceremony let alone a legal wedding, and imposes penalties on clergy who do so.

Sacred Encounter Cover 3Many Reform rabbis have led their communities to embrace and welcome LGBTQ Jews into their communities and have been proud to perform the first weddings in their states as marriage equality has become legal.  I had the honor in California in June of 2008 when I performed the first wedding of plaintiffs on the steps of the Beverly Hills Court House. And this past week, our colleagues, Jonathan Biatch and Dan Danson had the honor of performing some of the first lesbian and gay weddings in Wisconsin, the newest state to welcome marriage equality!

I rejoice that the Reform Rabbinate is taking a lead in this case, supporting our North Carolina rabbis, and living up to our stated values of full equality, justice and inclusion of the LGBT community!  And you should be too!

If you want to read more about the history of the LGBT equality and Reform Judaism, read further in the new offering from CCAR PRESS,  The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality,  ed. Rabbi Lisa Gruschow, Ph.D.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the founding Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami and serves as President Elect of the CCAR.