ࡱ> KMJ%` q4bjbj"x"x 4F@@q,DDDD,p[ $IhN 4 4 4 "4 4 4 rT 0@D ^ +0[(  0 "4  $  [ DDD BH Submission to the 鱨վ On Protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and sex and/or gender identity Rabbi Dr Shimon Cowen, Chair, Social Policy Committee, Organization of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA) The identity of a person The standpoint of Judaism (and so of many of the major religions, certainly the Abrahamic religions) is that the human being possesses a soul, and that this soul is made in the image of G-d, that is to say it both recognizes and mirrors the Divine. A human being also possesses a mind and a body. The body is the source of a great variety of impulses. The purpose of the integral human being is that body and mind should live according to the moral ideals known and received by the soul. Judaism does not look down upon the body. To the contrary it recognizes the emotional struggles and impulses within in a person, the strength and the passion which the human body possesses. It also recognizes the quality of human intellect. Yet it requires that both intellect and body lend their strengths to moral imperatives, the higher conscience of the soul. When the soul directs the vehicles of body and mind, the human can achieve his or her great redemptive role within the Creation. Where impulses within the human being mitigate against the spiritual identity of a person, the classic human struggle begins. With regard to the Divine template of human sexuality, humanity as a whole is enjoined to establish marriage and to procreate. This is how the human being was born, as a spiritual-physical entity, and this is how he or she should perpetuate creation: extending the presence of the human being as an agency of the Divine in transforming creation and manifesting the Divine within it. The human being ultimately finds identity with a mate, and this mate is the heterosexual counterpart. Such is the inner spiritual logic of the higher human union, which contains complementary male and female characteristics: the whole human being, in which the individual partner participates. This needs to be a loyal and committed relationship. The religious tradition upholds this union and prohibits four others: adultery (intrusion into another union), incest, union with an animal (bestiality) and homosexuality (union with the same sex). Each of these negatively affect the normative spiritual-physical identity of a human being, fitted for the Divine agency which the Creator gave the human being. The fact that people might form a homosexual union by consent adds nothing. It is not a question of interpersonal harm or harmlessness, but an issue of the normative spiritual-physical identity of a human being. The relation of physical impulse and orientation to human identity For most human beings, there are a great many impulses of an emotional or instinctual character with which a person has to battle in order to carry out moral imperatives. A person is tempted to steal, a person is driven by a variety of passions which have to be countered. What distinguishes a human being from an animal is that the instinctual set within the person is not the persons identity. The persons identity is found in conscience, in the spiritual faculty which is oriented to moral precepts, which adjudicates action, which often means saying no to particular human drives. This does not mean an indifference to physical or psychological suffering. Human beings need to eat, they need shelter, health, love and so forth. The Divine purpose is that a material and psychological good should be achieved, which however at the same time is a morally sanctionable one. Pain is not a virtue, nor is its avoidance under all costs a virtue either. In the case of a deep-set homosexual inclination in a human being, this is something which must be viewed with compassion. All the help that can be given to such a person to lead what is a normal life, according to the Divine template, should be extended. But this inclination may not be indulged in practice. Human beings have incestuous impulses (Freud called it the Oedipus complex), people have bestial impulses (as brought out in the statistic that over 30% of boys growing up on farms in the US had had sexual relations with animals). But to validate an incestuous or a bestial impulse does no favour to the spiritual identity of a human being, who was not created to find personal identity in these unions. The same applies to homosexual impulses, however deep seated. There is no right to practical expression of homosexual impulse. But there is a right to an education and self-actualization of the human spiritual personality. The greatest concern with all the measures built on the concept of a right to express homosexual impulse (or in Sweden, which allows marriage between half-siblings, to express incestuous impulse) in practice is that it will erode the spiritual rights and freedoms of the human being, including those of the homosexual, as explained in the following. Means contemplated to remove the spiritual identity and freedom of persons A. The education of children 鱨վ possess fluid sexual identities. There are many, who eventually socialize into heterosexual relationships, who at some time or another have experienced homosexual impulses. The child has an as yet unformed moral identity, something which comes with maturation. The programs introduced into schools to combat the bullying of homosexually inclined children call for a self-identification of children as homosexual or heterosexual at a stage where the child does not yet have clear identity. The fact that it also includes a category dont know, would not inhibit many children from identifying themselves as homosexual when they can without great difficulty acculturate a heterosexual model. The effect of these programs (with its precursor instruction all the way back into primary education) is to validate homosexuality and to offer a teenage confirmation into homosexuality. Along the spectrum from deep-set homosexual inclinations to normal adolescent equivocation, the effect is to cultivate homosexuality in both quantity and quality (along the scale), where the traditional norms would have educated to heterosexuality. These educational programs against bullying are misguided in terms of their concept and consequences. The way to address bullying is discussed in the last section. B. Social education Means taken to curb what is regarded as the mistreatment of homosexuals in the wider society include the concept of hate-crime legislation. This involves an additional penalty where a hate-motive accompanied the crime such as an assault. Thus where the assault was racially motivated or was carried out against a person with a disability, the penalty should be augmented to teach society and the individual a further lesson beyond the evil of assault: namely the dignity of the human being regardless of race or disability. This is fully warranted from a religious standpoint. The image of G-d is the potential spiritual identity and worth of every human being, regardless of race or disability. Violence prompted by hatred of race and disability denies that principle and extra penalties in these cases may be needed to teach that. Homosexual practice, however, is not part of the essential spiritual identity of the human being; it is not a right. And consequently no additional punishment should be employed to teach that it is. The further danger associated with hate-crime legislation is that it can extend to hate-speech legislation, which for some means the restriction on the professing of religious beliefs concerning the wrongness of the practice of homosexuality. This strikes at the religious freedom of the society as a whole. Forcing schools or religious institutions to employ persons who model a morality contrary to their own is further a restriction of religious freedom, acknowledged fortunately by the Victorian Government. C. Legislation institutionalizing homosexuality Legislation seeking to extend the entitlements of marriage to homosexual relationships, whether in homosexual marriage or its practical equivalent in civil unions seeks to legitimate a practice, which traditional culture does not validate. If the Human Rights Commission were to take up the Swedish initiative to establish incestuous marriage (between half-siblings), it would also seek a complete overhaul of the law to empower couples in incestuous relationships with the same entitlements as heterosexual couples. The AHRC does not believe that incest should be institutionalized and so is not pursuing that project. The world religions hold that wrongness of incest extends also to homosexuality. Allowing IVF and surrogacy procedures or adoption for homosexual couples not only ratifies the practice of homosexuality, but also denies the child a right of identity as the child (whether biological or adoptive) of a heterosexual couple. The protection of homosexually oriented persons We live in a society in which media and academia have gone far to legitimate homosexual practice, and where family and community breakdown has weakened the transmission of traditional values. Even from a religious standpoint, most individuals engaged in homosexual practices could hardly be called deliberate sinners, because no one told them it was wrong. Religious individuals with crises of homosexual orientation have their own sincere struggles, but their adherence to a religious norm generally gives them the strength, notwithstanding personal suffering, to abstain from homosexual practice. What can stop violence and abuse towards persons for any reason is the thoroughgoing education (school, social and legislative) that violence and insult is a moral wrong, and that the human being is worthy of respect because he or she was created by G-d, and was created in the Image of G-d. The same religious doctrine teaches a positive regard for every human being. This regard can be maintained precisely because the human being represents more than a physical existence. Whatever I think of (and however Divine morality assesses) a persons actual conduct, that person has an inner spiritual value and resource, which I must acknowledge. The same knowledge (that the essential person is the spiritual self) is of value to the human being bullied because of homosexual orientation or practice. This person needs to know that he or she has an inner resource, a spiritual power, the human beings greatest possession. With that moral knowledge of what is wrong and what is right (and of Who has said it - my Creator), I can oppose a higher I to the I of my bodily impulses predicament. For many who, in the current cultural trends could easily be socialized into homosexuality, but with some effort can move towards the heterosexual norm, this will add inner strength needed for the transformation. For those few in whom the homosexual impulse appears very deep, it will give strength at least to desist in practice. This is ones freedom to actualize ones highest identity, to live a life modelled on the Divine. The worst offence against the spiritual identity and freedom of the homosexual is the school, social and legislative education which teaches him or her that homosexuality is indeed his or her ultimate and intrinsic identity. 89:;<   ; L  3 o p ƻƻxphp`p`pXPHPHPHhw CJaJh/CJaJh|`CJaJhNvCJaJh?nCJaJh -CJaJh -5CJ\aJh -h -5CJ\aJhh -6CJ]aJhhV\G6CJ]aJhh?n6CJ]aJhOThzCJaJhOTh?nCJaJhz5CJ\aJhzhz5CJ\aJhzh*CJaJhzhzCJaJ9l  45!!gdzgd?ngdAmjgdgvfgdZlgd/gd@2Agd -$a$gd?n$a$gdz$a$gdzq4 34Xv~'7).!05Qu~vnvfhiCJaJhgvfCJaJhAmjCJaJheDhgvfCJaJheDhAmjCJaJheDh=RCJaJh=RCJaJhny+5CJ\aJhny+hny+5CJ\aJhny+CJaJh CJaJhZlCJaJhCJaJh%CJaJh -CJaJhw CJaJh/CJaJ%!!!!!*!+!#####h&4'5'6'8'9'f''((ûѥqi^SheDhTCJaJheDh_CJaJh_CJaJhBhB5CJ\aJhCY5CJ\aJh)=CJaJhBCJaJhz5CJ\aJhzhz5CJ\aJhzCJaJhiCJaJh?nhi5CJ\aJhM5CJ\aJhi5CJ\aJh?n5CJ\aJhihi5CJ\aJ!+!5'6'f'++D+--!0"0q4gd\gd(mgdgvf$a$gd?ngd_gdgdBgdz (( ))$)i))*"*+*++C+D+&,+,?,B,-----..00 0!040g0s1122.33-4>4zrrjrrjrjrbrbrhOTCJaJhgvfCJaJh|]CJaJh(mh(m6CJ]aJhTCJaJhCJaJh(mCJaJhB5CJ\aJhBhB5CJ\aJh_CJaJh)=CJaJheDh)=CJaJheDhgvfCJaJheDh(mCJaJheDhTCJaJheDhCJaJ&>4Y4g4p4q4h(mh|]CJaJh\CJaJhOTCJaJ21h:p*. 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