Bloomfield synagogue seeks allies in support of gay marriage

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Sheryl Goldstein and her partner, Cindy Sherman, members of Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, think it’s critical that their synagogue fight for gay marriage. “I want to know that the organizations I support will also support me” as a gay person, said Goldstein. “I expect my rabbi to use the pulpit to support me.”

Goldstein needn’t worry. Her rabbi, Steven Kushner, has conducted religious commitment ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples, and the synagogue has a letter template about to be posted on its Web site that supports gay marriage, which congregants can download, fill out, and send to legislators.

But Goldstein and other activists want that support to spread to other congregations, and on Nov. 10, she and a delegation of nine others from Ner Tamid attended the Garden State Equality Town Meeting at the Unitarian Church of Montclair.

The meeting, Straight New Jerseyans for Gay Marriage, presented by GSE, BlueWave NJ, New Jersey for Democracy, and NJ chapters of Parents, Friends, and Family of Lesbians and Gays, was the 21st in a series of town meetings organized by GSE since 2003 in support of gay marriage.

Attended by about 150 people who filled the pews to overflowing, the meeting was led by GSE founder and chair Steve Goldstein, who is also a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pa.

Some 55 percent of New Jerseyans support gay marriage, according to an April Garden State Equality-Zogby poll, repeating the results of a 2003 Zogby poll. A lawsuit is now pending before the NJ Supreme Court seeking full marriage rights for seven lesbian and gay couples. The plaintiffs lost their case in a lower court ruling in June.

Last week’s event featured talks by, among others, two of the plaintiffs in that case as well as Goldstein and Mayor Jason West of New Paltz, NY, one of the first mayors to perform gay marriages.

No minority can win civil rights, said Steve Goldstein, unless they have buy-in from the majority. “The test of any civil rights movement is whether the people not part of the core group will join in,” he said.

Temple Ner Tamid and its social action committee are particularly committed to joining in, according to social action committee cochair Anne Gorfinkel. “We are committed to this issue as a matter of human rights. We believe it’s fundamentally a Jewish issue because it’s all about giving people rights and protecting them,” she said. “As a population of people that has had its rights taken away, we feel we can’t let it happen…. And as a people of faith, we do not want to let the religious right co-opt this agenda.”

The issue of gay marriage has divided the Jewish community. Orthodoxy stands adamantly opposed to gay marriage based on its reading of Halacha, or Jewish law. Reform and Reconstructionist communities have declared their support. The Conservative movement has not reached consensus on the issue, and while members of its Rabbinical Assembly may not officiate at gay wedding ceremonies, there is a growing cadre of congregational rabbis who oppose the official position and say they will perform gay marriages anyway.

At Ner Tamid, gay marriage is not under debate. Steve Goldstein was a featured speaker earlier this fall, and the synagogue is forming alliances with other nearby synagogues and working with the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism on gay rights issues.

Meanwhile, Sheryl Goldstein was distributing buttons she created to those who attended the town meeting; on them are the slogans “Straight but not narrow” and “I support marriage equality!”

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.

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