Congregation Fighting Homophobia
Last month interfaith clergy groups marched in the lead of gay pride parades in several cities, sending a message of tolerance to haters and disparagers. Only days after their show of solidarity, the interfaith group in one of those cities, Sacramento, came together again in sadness to celebrate a life cut short by hatred of gays.
On July 1st a Russian-speaking group harassed a group of Fijians, as both groups picnicked at a local lake. The Russian speakers reportedly hurled anti-gay epithets at the Fijians and one of them punched 26-year-old Satender Singh, who fell and sustained a brain injury. His family took him off life support the following week.
At last year’s Pride event, Sacramento’s LGBT community suffered intimidating harassment by fundamentalist Slavic Christians. So this year, Dr. Darrick Lawson, president emeritus of the Stonewall Democrats of Greater Sacramento, told JewsOnFirst that Pride organizers asked the many local congregations that support gay rights to be a strong presence in the parade. He said they wanted the clergy presence "so as we went marching down the street the protestors would see that."
Lawson said that when the protestors saw the clergy, they looked "shell-shocked." They had been told that people of faith condemned homosexuality, he said, "and then all of a sudden there’s all these people in their vestments walking down the road in support."
Local Jewish congregation takes an active role The Friday before the parade, Lawson said, he participated in a Pride Shabbat service and panel discussion at Congregation B’nai Israel.
The congregation, and its rabbi, Mona Alfi, have been very active in supporting the Sacramento LGBT community.
Rabbi Alfi discussed the congregation’s activism in an interview with JewsOnFirst. She said: "The reason we took on the issue of gay rights was because over the previous year there had been a series of attacks by another faith group on the gay community in Sacramento and we felt it was important to speak up as a faith group, to show another perspective on what religion has to say, and to show another perspective of tolerance, respect, and protecting people."
Alfi continued: "Our synagogue has a long history of social action and being involved in the Sacramento community. As a result of a Simhat Torah [the holiday celebrating the conclusion and then beginning of the annual Torah cycle] seminar called Torah in Action, we wanted to see how we could become more engaged [and] take the Torah out into the world."
She said: "We decided to take on three issues: sustainable living, adopting a local neighborhood school, and gay rights," said Alfi.
"During the Pride Shabbat service we talked about Jewish values and the variety of values in the Jewish community. We had an educational seminar on the diversity of our community. We had a booth the next day," Alfi said. "We believe in having a presence."
Alfi said the congregation’s response was "overwhelmingly proud, a pride not only as individuals, but as a community." She attributes that to members’ roots in the Reform movement. "We believe as Reform Jews in taking the message of Tikkun Olam [repairing the world] out onto the streets and into the wider community."
JewsOnFirst.org