Agudah goes beserk over "muddle and malaise" of gay ruling

What more can we say? Canonist published the Agudah response to the Conservative movement's rulings on gays. It appears that Agudah has flipped out entirely over this concern.

They "lament" the decisions with "sorrow". They call them "shameless" and “an abandonment of all pretense of fealty to Judaism.” They speak with sarcasm about how the decisions do not "conserve the Jewish tradition." They speak with empty lawyerly rhetoric about how "abundantly clear" it is that "homosexual behavior is sinful." They conclude that this action, "seals the fate of a movement long mired in muddle and malaise." And they append the traditional Agudah disclaimer that in their opinion exonerates them in all cases from charges of insensitivity, gay-bashing or gynophobia, namely they say, "Every Jew is precious in the eyes of Heaven."

Sorry Avi. You are vague. You don't cite any authority or ruling. You did not do your homework. You are lazing in your own malaise and ignorant in your own muddle and we see through the fog of your rhetoric. You surely do nothing to unite Israel.

For Agudah it's just another stormy day of bullying and insulting their fellow Jews. Here is the sacred text of the Agudah proclamation:

AGUDATH ISRAEL LAMENTS CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT DECISION

“An Abandonment of All Pretense of Fealty to Judaism”

NEW YORK – Noting with sorrow the Conservative movement’s “Committee on Jewish Law and Standards”’ shameless endorsement of a position permitting “commitment ceremonies” between people of the same gender and the ordination as Conservative rabbis of people living openly homosexual lives, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America called the decision “an abandonment of all pretense of fealty to Judaism.”

Rabbi Avi Shafran, Agudath Israel’s director of public affairs, stated that “this ruling doesn’t conserve the Jewish tradition, it defies it.”

“The entire corpus of halacha, or Jewish religious law,” he said, “makes abundantly clear that homosexual behavior is sinful. That a movement claiming to uphold the Jewish religious tradition can arrogate to stand halachic Judaism on its head is tragic. It will no doubt cheer those who place contemporary mores above the Jewish mandate, but in the end, it seals the fate of a movement long mired in muddle and malaise.”

“While every Jew is precious in the eyes of Heaven,” Rabbi Shafran continued, “and while some of us may face more difficult challenges than others as we strive to live by the Torah’s prescriptions, that striving is the very essence of what it means to be a Jew committed to Judaism.”