Kevin Rudd’s sister slammed over slur | AJN

22 Jul 2011
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition
CHANTAL ABITBOL

Kevin Rudd’s sister slammed over slur

JEWISH leaders have criticised Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd’s sister for comparing the gay-marriage lobby to Nazi mass murderers.

In comments made to The Australian last week, Loree Rudd threatened to quit the Australian Labor Party if it backs gay marriage at its national conference in December. The devout Christian also accused some of the party’s members of being brainwashed by a “global gay Gestapo”.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has repeatedly expressed her opposition to same-sex marriage and has indicated her Government will make no changes to the Marriage Act. Nonetheless, many ALP members and supporters are urging her to reconsider her position.

While not weighing into the political debate, the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), Australia’s peak Jewish human rights body, called for Loree Rudd to apologise for the comparison between policy advocates and Nazis.

“It is completely unacceptable for anyone to co-opt and trivialise the name of one of the most active and feared arms of the Nazi machinery for their own political purposes,” ADC president Anton Block told the media.

“The Gestapo was directly responsible for the murders of Jewish, Romani, homosexual and disabled people. To use its name in this context shows a level of ignorance and insensitivity that has no place in contemporary political discourse.”

Roy Freeman, founder of J4ME, a Jewish group advocating for same-sex marriage, called Rudd’s comments “offensive and obviously untrue”.

“This kind of language is unacceptable in 21st-century Australia,” he told The AJN. “Those who glibly throw around such comparisons diminish the crimes committed by the Nazis and attempt to demonise the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community.”

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive officer Vic Alhadeff told media, “Drawing a comparison between advocates of gay marriage and the Gestapo is insensitive and counterproductive.”

Dr Adiva Sifris on Marriage Equality (Melb, Sat July 30, 2011)

Shira Melbourne

Communal lunch and guest speaker
” Marriage Equality”

Shira would like to invite you to a Communal Kiddush Lunch on July 30th, after our shul service (around 12pm) where we will hear from Dr Adiva Sifris, a senior lecturer at Monash University Law School. Dr Sifris is recognised as an expert in the area of Family Law, with a particular interest in same-sex parenting.  She recently co-edited a collection of essays entitled Current Trends in the Regulation of Same-Sex Relationships.

The talk aims to discuss some of the issues, and is particularly topical in light of the recent legalisation of same sex marriages in New York City. Shira would like this to be a completely inclusive event, where people from all walks of life are made welcome and feel comfortable.

Join us for the Shul Service, followed by lunch and the engaging talk.

TOPIC: “Marriage, shmarriage, and same sex-relationships”
WHAT: Lunch – traditional shabbat food – chulent, fish, sushi, veggie wraps, lots of salads and yummy desserts
WHERE:  222 Balaclava Road, Caulfield North (the Theodore Herzl Club)
WHEN:  Shabbat (Saturday) July 30th, approximately midday 12pm.
COST:  Adults $20, kids $10

Bookings are required for this event. Please book using paypal or a credit card on our website here. Alternatively payment can be made via direct transfer to the Shira bank account:

SHIRA HADASHA MELBOURNE
BSB: 013 445
ACCOUNT NUMBER  4978 30199

For any enquiries, please email carmella@shira.org.au
Thank you all, and we look forward to seeing you on July 30th!

NY shul throws symbolic celebration for gay marriage | JPost

NY shul throws symbolic celebration for gay marriage


Symbolic Jewish wedding ceremony marks passage of law permitting same-sex couples to marry in New York state.

NEW YORK – Gay rights activist Dvorah Stoll raised her foot in the air and then brought it down with a bang, shattering the glass that lay beneath her to pieces.

“Mazal tov!” the crowd shouted, and broke into a celebratory dance.

Despite appearances, none of those who gathered at the B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue on the Upper West Side last Thursday were wed that night. Rather, they came to take part in a symbolic Jewish wedding ceremony marking the passage of state legislation earlier this month that permitted same-sex couples to marry in New York.

“Tonight is about celebrating the passage of marriage equality in New York State and as a community embracing all the couples that can now get married who are part of the community and have been for many years,” said congregant Lisa Safire, who is co-chair of the marriage equality movement Hevra.

“BJ has done [same-sex] ceremonies for a number of years, but now it can do so in an official capacity. We’re thrilled, and as a community, there’s this closure. Now everyone can participate in this mitzva.”

Participants at the event recited the traditional seven blessings and shared their excitement over the passage of the bill many of them had actively supported.

Sy and Karen Ziven, congregation members whose daughter is gay, are supporters of gay rights. They said they were overjoyed with the legislation.

“Our family is a big family, “said Sy Ziven. “It takes in a lot of people, so it just means a lot to us. Having been part of this movement for a long, long period time, to see it come to this, we’re very happy. And to see the Jewish community be a part of it, is a big, big deal.”

Stoll, who had lobbied the state senate for years and took part in countless protests and petitions, spoke with pride of the achievement.

“When it was passed, I called my son in Washington to read him the bill,“ Stoll said. “He said, ‘That’s great, mom.’ He then added, ‘Don’t get any ideas.’” The much-fought-over bill, which divided the Jewish community, was narrowly approved by the New York State Senate earlier this month. While it was supported by many Jews affiliated with Reform and Conservative Judaism, it was largely opposed by the Orthodox establishment.

Democratic state senator Liz Krueger, one of the original co-sponsors of the bill, spoke about her conversations with Orthodox rabbis who lobbied against the proposal.

“When [Orthodox rabbis] would tell me that it’s a violation of Jewish law, I would tell them that’s not true,” the Jewish lawmaker, who represents the Upper East Side, said. “In fact, my rabbi was explaining to me how when this became the law in New York State, he would happy to participate in same-sex wedding services, and that the Jewish religion was very broad in interpretation and that there was absolutely no concern for Judaism.

“But of course, this is civil law. This is all about couples having the same legal rights under law whether they are heterosexual couples such as myself and my husband, or same-sex couples.”

For Mark Horn, a gay congregant who has been fighting for gay rights for four decades, the passage of the bill was a bittersweet moment. He told the audience at B’nai Jeshurun about his mixed feelings the night it was made into legislation as he stood amid a crowd gathered outside Stonewall Inn, the iconic gay bar in West Village where the gay rights movement galvanized in 1969.

“As the crowd cheered and celebrated, my heart ached with sadness for the men I knew who had not lived to see this moment,” he said. “Many of the men were at that action in 1971, many of the men I loved,” he said and read out a list of names.

He added: “In the crowd of revelers, I said a silent prayer. Tonight I feel the swirl of so many emotions, but mostly I feel blessed.”

After the ceremony ended, participants congratulated each other while Billy Idol’s song “White Wedding” played in the background.

Adam Border, a 26-year-old gay man who is Catholic, said he was impressed by the event and believed other religious communities could learn from it.

“[I think it’s great] seeing the Jewish community embrace something that might be frowned upon in other faiths,” he said. “I think that with time – and it was mentioned tonight a couple of times what a battle it’s been – maybe the Catholic community needs to come together and embrace something like this themselves.”

Israel Wrestles With How – or Whether – To Recognize Gay Couples | The Forward

Israel Wrestles With How — or Whether — To Recognize Gay Couples

As Interior Ministry Dallies, One Couple Prepares for a High Court Challenge

Seeking Reconition: Joshua Goldberg, left, and Bayardo Alvarez were married in Canada. But Israel’s Interior Ministry has yet to respond to Alvarez’s request for citizenship.

Courtesy of Joshua Goldberg
Seeking Reconition: Joshua Goldberg, left, and Bayardo Alvarez were married in Canada. But Israel’s Interior Ministry has yet to respond to Alvarez’s request for citizenship.

By Nathan Jeffay

Published July 18, 2011, issue of July 29, 2011.

 

As New York prepares to inaugurate same-sex marriage on July 24, two men married to each other 5,500 miles away are fighting a battle for the rights of Jewish men and women in Israel who take advantage of the new law and others like it.

Just as every Jew has the right to immigrate to Israel and receive citizenship under the Law of Return, so does his or her “spouse,” even if that spouse is not Jewish. But whether Israel would honor this for same-sex as well as heterosexual couples has never been tested.

Now, an American Jewish man has given Israel’s Interior Ministry, which is controlled by the Haredi Shas party, a July 31 deadline to give his husband citizenship. The couple’s alternative is a high court petition for citizenship, which legal experts believe will likely succeed.

This has made Joshua Goldberg furious. His local Jewish Agency office told him that his husband, Bayardo Alvarez, could have citizenship, but when the couple’s visas came through in February, Goldberg received citizenship, yet Alvarez received only temporary residency. The two married four years ago in Canada and moved to Israel from Baltimore on June 10, but the Interior Ministry has yet to respond to Alvarez’s 4-month-old appeal to change his status to citizen. “The lack of decision making at the Interior Ministry has made our absorption here very difficult, and in some ways it feels very unwelcoming,” Goldberg told the Forward.

The Interior Ministry responded in a statement to questions from the Forward, saying that the matter is still “under examination” because this is the first request of its kind. The ministry added that it regrets the “mental anguish” that the uncertainty is causing the couple.

There is no same-sex marriage in Israel, but the state does recognize, for some administrative purposes, same-sex marriages performed overseas. In 2006, Israel’s high court issued a precedent-setting ruling that five gay couples already residing in Israel but wed overseas could be registered as married couples in Israel.

The attorney who petitioned for that ruling, Dan Yakir, told the Forward that granting citizenship to the immigrant spouse of a gay person is an extension of the earlier ruling’s logic and in the spirit of other legal advances for same-sex couples. “Based on jurisprudence over the last 15 years, this would be the proper interpretation of the law,” said Yakir, who is chief legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

For Goldberg and Alvarez, their fight is a point of principle, but also a highly practical matter. When they arrived in June, Alvarez was ineligible for all but one of the state-funded absorption programs to which those immigrating under the Law of Return are entitled — a Jewish Agency course in Eilat that combines hotel work with Hebrew study. Goldberg and Alvarez — a 40-year-old marketing professional and a 33-year-old florist, respectively — enrolled but found that classes were currently on a break, so they left after three weeks.

If Alvarez were an immigrant coming in under the Law of Return, the couple could have benefited from subsidized housing and acculturation workshops at one of the state’s “absorption centers,” which are located across the country. Instead, since leaving Eilat, they are renting an apartment at their own expense in Tel Aviv. Alvarez is ineligible for state-funded Hebrew classes. And instead of receiving 33,110 shekels ($9,500) between them in state assistance for relocating, they receive 17,368 shekels ($5,000) as a payment to Goldberg alone.

The couple’s lawyer, Nicky Maor of the Israel Religious Action Center, the lobbying arm of the Reform movement, said that they are victims of “illegal discrimination.” She commented, “As the Law of Return uses the word ‘spouse’ as opposed to citizenship laws, which use the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife,’ here there’s not even any interpretation needed and there’s no basis for distinguishing between heterosexual and same-sex marriage.”

Legal experts believe that if the Interior Ministry does not meet the couple’s July 31 deadline and the two petition the high court, judges will be hard-pressed to reject them. Tel Aviv University law professor Aeyal Gross, an expert on constitutional law and gay and lesbian rights, said that the argument would be particularly difficult to undermine, as Israel has a history of recognizing marriages that it doesn’t allow to be performed in its jurisdiction.

There is no civil marriage in Israel. But since long before Yakir’s 2006 petition, Israelis who want a civil marriage or need one — usually immigrants from the former Soviet bloc who are not Jewish — have wed in Cyprus, had their unions registered by Israel and received the rights of any other married couple. In view of this and the 2006 ruling recognizing same-sex marriages between Israeli citizens registered outside Israel, “I don’t see any viable justification the state could come up with to discriminate here,” Gross said.

Contact Nathan Jeffay at jeffay@forward.com.

Rudd’s sister: I will not apologise | Sunshine Coast Daily

Rudd’s sister: I will not apologise

16th July 2011

KEVIN Rudd’s sister has refused to apologise for describing a movement promoting same-sex marriage as a “global gay Gestapo”.

Loree Rudd, a divorced 60-year-old nurse who lives at Nambour, said she expected people would be offended by her opposition to gay marriage.

Homosexual lobby groups and the Anti-Defamation Commission have called for the Foreign Minister’s sister to apologise for her “anti-gay remark”.

“Some of the vitriol that was aimed at my comments was exactly what I was talking about,” Ms Rudd said.

“A lot of people, in fact thousands of people, who live very quietly are probably happy to have a discussion about issues like this (gay marriage).

“But why would they, because they get shot down in flames and called all kinds of dreadful names because they gave their opinion.

“That has been the trend … people back down and say not only that they retract their words but that they actually endorse the movement.

“That was the force of the intimidation I saw.

“That’s why I use the word Gestapo … (to describe) a force that intimidates and that people are afraid to stand up against.”

Ms Rudd spoke publicly this week against gay marriage and said she would quit Labor if it backed reform to marriage laws at the party’s national conference later this year.

She said her views were “very much based on a biblical tradition and a respect for the values and the institution that has served us well for so many years”.

Ms Rudd said her opinions had not been endorsed or opposed by her brother.

Four state ALP conferences have endorsed changes to legalise same-sex marriage.

NSW Labor last week refused to back the proposal and referred the issue to the national conference.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Ms Rudd’s brother have both said they did not support plans to change the marriage act.

Loree Rudd urged to say sorry for gay slur | SMH

Loree Rudd urged to say sorry for gay slur

July 15, 2011 – 7:04PM

AAP

The Anti Defamation Commission has joined calls for former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s sister to apologise over an anti-gay marriage remark.

Loree Rudd is lobbying federal MPs and threatening to quit Labor if the party backs gay marriage at its national conference in December.

She accused some Labor members of being brainwashed by a “global gay Gestapo” this week.

The ADC, Australia’s peak Jewish human rights body, said she should apologise.

“It is completely unacceptable for anyone to co-opt and trivialise the name of one of the most active and feared arms of the Nazi machinery for their own political purposes,” ADC chairman Anton Block said in a statement on Friday.

“The Gestapo was directly responsible for the murders of Jewish, Romani, homosexual and disabled people.

“To use its name in this context shows a level of ignorance and insensitivity that has no place in contemporary political discourse.

“It is highly offensive, and we call upon Ms Rudd to apologise immediately and unreservedly.”

Four state ALP conferences have endorsed changes to legalise same-sex marriage under federal law. NSW Labor last week refused to back the proposal and referred the issue to the national conference.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she does not have any plans to change the marriage act.

The coalition also opposes legislating for same-sex marriage but the Greens support it.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies responds to Loree Rudd’s “Gay Gestapo” comment

July 15, 2011

“NSW Jewish Board of Deputies Chief Executive Officer Vic Alhadeff has condemned the use of Nazi analogy to condemn the gay-marriage lobby by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd’s sister, Loree Rudd, who has slammed them as the “global gay Gestapo”.

“Drawing a comparison between advocates of gay marriage and the Gestapo is insensitive and counterproductive,” Alhadeff said. “The thoughtless use of Nazi and Holocaust analogies in intelligent and informed discourse is completely inappropriate and unjustified.”

Vic Alhadeff
Chief Executive Officer