General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This message was self-deleted by its author [View all]TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)He converted during college. When he went to rabbinical school he was already a member of the Boston Gay Men's Chorus, had it on his resume, and nobody cared that he was openly gay or a convert. Since he's never been and never wanted to be ultra orthodox and is openly gay and was before he even went to rabbinical school, I'm sure you can imagine what he thinks about ultra orthodox Judaism and any anti-gay or anti-whatever they espouse that is harmful to anyone. He doesn't care what they believe as long as they aren't doing or saying anything hurtful to anyone else. Ultra orthodox Jews as I'm sure you know barely communicate with anyone outside their strict version of their faith.
Personally, I considered myself non-Catholic and pulled away from the Catholic church before I was even old enough to be of a double digit age not just because of their refusal to recognize women within the hierarchy and unequal to men in pretty much everything but mostly because parishioners were treated as non-thinking idiots that they actively didn't want them reading and interpreting the Bible or doing their own thinking about anything concerning the religion or really anything else - don't think, ask your priest to tell you what to think.
As you know, certain factions in various religions are not accepting of in particular women and LGBT people. That doesn't mean those factions all butt their noses into the beliefs of others. Then there's the Roman Catholic Church whose hierarchy is outspokenly bigoted at the highest level, but they've always been a corrupt gang wishing to go back to the glory days of control in the middle ages. Other than them I'm not aware of any other religion that has a single head of the "church."
Does that mean all Catholics agree with the church hierarchy? Of course not. We learned most of what we did about tolerance of the beliefs of others and embracing other peoples' differences from our very Catholic mom. Neither of my parents gave a fart in the wind that my oldest brother is gay and were relieved when he finally came out of the closet about it (we all long since already figured it out anyway so it wasn't news). Our mom in particular was thrilled that he wanted to become a rabbi seeing as how he was the only one of us with much of any spirituality. She's gone with my brother to many LGBT gatherings where she always practically had to be dragged out of and where so many of them were moved to tears and called her "Mom" because of her immediate and complete acceptance of who they were and in particular some who's own families had rejected them which she is horrified by. She still gets cards and letters from some of them though with her dementia she often forgets who they are (but she often forgets who we are, too).
It's not the religion it's the "church," certain factions of the "church" or certain leaders of the "church" not the religion itself, and religious beliefs are as varied as peoples' faces are and may even change periodically with each individual. Though my brother used to be personally pretty strict concerning Jewish dietary laws, he doesn't care anymore and often has bacon at breakfast or in a BLT (though he always uses way too much mayo and on practically everything).
He like most every other person of faith doesn't go sticking his nose in anyone else's religious beliefs and calls a bigot a bigot whether they hide behind religion or something else. And the latter we're very much aware (along with the rest of the family) was instilled in us very early from in particular our very Catholic mother.