This is just awful.
A Brooklyn Rabbi, Yehuda Levin, wrote that gay men should consider chemical castration “as you do with cancer” to stop their same-sex feelings. Levin made his comments in a Letter to the Editor in response to a groundbreaking op-ed written in the Jewish Press by Chaim Levin. (No relation). The op-ed was important because it was the first time that this conservative publication published a column written from the perspective of an openly gay former Orthodox Jew.
“As you do with cancer, you never stop trying to find a better treatment to cure yourself,” wrote Rabbi Yehuda Levin in his Jewish Press letter. “If all therapies fail, as a last resort you use chemicals to stop the urge to act in a forbidden manner. (This resolution is ordered by European courts for offenders and it works.) Unpleasant, surely; but better than committing adultery, homosexuality or incest.”
Rabbi Levin’s medieval mindset is an embarrassment to Judaism and he should be deeply ashamed of himself. Levin’s anti-gay comments were cruel and insensitive to Jews everywhere who have felt the sting of intolerance and discrimination.
Rabbi Levin, who leads Congregation Mevakshei Hashem in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, is no stranger to anti-gay controversies. Last year he made news by claiming that the new marriage equality law in New York helped cause the earthquake that shook the East Coast. The rabbi opposed a gay pride parade in Jerusalem in 2010 calling it a “sodomy celebration” and “nothing less than the spiritual rape of the Holy Land.”
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However, Levin is most remembered for helping GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino write anti-gay remarks that badly backfired. After Paladino retreated and apologized to the LGBT community, Levin dropped his support complaining that the politician, “folded like a cheap camera.”
Clearly, Rabbi Yehuda Levin is the Jewish version of Fred Phelps, the hateful Kansas preacher best known for protesting LGBT events with “God Hates Fags” signs. The fact that so many anti-gay organizations team up with him proves that they will scrape the bottom of the barrel to show that their ‘Christian Nation’ agenda has diverse support.
Indeed, Levin is a member of the advisory committee of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation. Last month, the rabbi joined some of America’s most radical extremists to protest the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling a few anti-gay organizations “hate groups.”
The Rabbi was angered after he read an historic op-ed in the Jewish Press by Chaim Levin, who detailed being abused at the hands of a therapist referred by the “ex-gay” organization Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH). The co-founder of JONAH, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is a convicted felon who concealed his lurid past until it was uncovered in a joint Truth Wins Out and South Florida Gay News investigation. Chaim originally spoke out about the harm caused by reparative therapy in a video produced by Truth Wins Out.
The reaction to Chaim’s Jewish Press op-ed by anti-gay activists was ferocious. According to the newspaper: “Following the publication of this op-ed, a number of Jewish Press advertisers were approached and threatened. They were told to stop advertising with the Jewish Press.”
Instead of backing down, the Jewish Press wrote a brave editorial defending Levin’s op-ed and boldly claimed that, “The Jewish Press won’t be silenced.” In support of the publication, TWO started an online Change.org petition that generated more than 3,000 letters from people who thanked the Jewish Press for their bravery and fairness.
Levin is not the only Jewish anti-gay extremist making news. Australia’s Rabbi Shimon Cowen published a report that claimed an effective way to counter anti-Semitic bullying is to funnel public money away from anti-homophobia bullying campaigns.
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OMG. Do people ever learn?! I’m sure the ‘good’ rabbi knows about the forced sterilization of Jews (and others) by the nazis. What would they like next for lgbt people, ‘relocation camps’? As soon as one group starts referring to another group of people as cancer, vermin etc.; we all know what follows.
the saddest part? the world is rapidly filing with non religious people who like people and people who claim to be religious and hate people.
Whenever anything happens on earth that kills or injures a population, blame it on God’s wrath because of whoever you hate the most. In the 21st century, this thinking is the same as that spoken in the Bible. Funny how God punishes the innocent because of us. You don’t hate us. What is it then? Love? I’ve asked that before. What is it if not a form of hatred? Actually, you’re blaming innocent society for just being fair to us. Ha! So, obviously you must possess some sort of ill will against us if God is kicking YOUR asses instead of ours. Besides, just wearing a hat like that and a beard like that is worth a kick in the a*s.
Gianni, I’ve concluded that God’s annual battering of the Bible Belt with tornadoes is His punishment for their woefully incompetent crusade to stop the homosexual agenda. I mean, come on, Stonewall was in 1969, and they’ve had nearly 43 years to do the job.
Or more likely, God’s on our side, and the Bible Belters can’t see past the froth coming out of their mouths to realize it.
It is hard for me to grasp a Jewish man say things like this. He needs to look into the past of his people and reverse the roles.
How can a person that represents a group of people that were treated the way Jews were say things like this about another group?
I am astonished.
Badge Society LGBT Forum
Our wise founding fathers wanted all Americans to have constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and speech. This gay poster fully supports Rabbi Levin’s right to believe absolutely anything and to speak out publicly. However repugnant, the ideas of a few kooks cannot injure us. So why should we be offended by their worthless drivel? Just ignore it. Suffering such fools is a small price to pay for our wonderful freedoms.
Bruce, the great thing is, we also have the right to speak freely and say what a disgusting person this is and to call attention to this vile man and the truly horrifying things he says. We don’t have to just “suffer” these fools we can speak out against them.
No argument from me on that, Daniel. I never said anything about suffering them IN SILENCE!
Actually, since I’m not really bothered by kooky ideas even when they’re supposedly about people like me, the main reason I occasionally listen to the Rabbi Levins of the world is a professional interest in the characteristics of thought and personality in religious extremism. That, and a curiosity for odd beliefs which may not be delusional in the clinical sense (due to cultural considerations), but are of delusional proportions nonetheless.
However, more mainstream anti-gay speech is a different story altogether. These ideas do cause injury to our community because they are carried by the mainstream media and are not seen as so obviously kooky. I attend to their words and actions in order to be better informed and help to counter their dangerous disinformation.
Bruce, I don’t really draw a distinction between mainstream anti-gay bigotry and religious kooks–I think they can both do damage. I think, though, that the people who listen to religious kooks are often more dangerous than those who listen to mainstream media.
Daniel, I see your point, and I agree that individuals who resonate to the fringe ideas probably are more dangerous in the sense of committing violent acts because they may already be mentally unhinged.
Now I realize that we are talking about two different kinds of danger and injury. The mainstream anti-gay speech I was referring to is the kind that denies civil rights to the LGBT community. That’s a different kind of dangerous idea. It puts the freedom of LGBT people at risk. And that’s a different kind of injury, but no less real.
As I always say, the best answer to bad speech is more speech, good speech.
[...] of the Jewish Press, and extremist Rabbi Yehuda Levin wrote a letter to the editor calling for the chemical castration of gay men. Levin has also had to endure the criticism of some LGBT Orthodox Jews who prefer a [...]
Hitler thought he knew what was best for others too. Do you really want to be on the side of history that treats people that way? I am sad to the core of my being about all the hate that is out there these days – we are sliding backwards to a time when it was socially acceptable to hate Women and gays.
[...] Did he purposely leave these out. Truth Wins Out – Chemical Castration for Gay Jews Promoted By … Truth Wins Out – Chemical Castration for Gay Jews Promoted By Radical Orthodox Rabbi Chemical Castration for Gay Jews Promoted By Radical Orthodox Rabbi. Now Haydn why don't you ask [...]