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25 Adar I 5763 - February 27, 2003 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
On Statute Before High Court, Agudah Stands Apart
by Yated Ne'eman Staff

As the United States Supreme Court considers a constitutional challenge to a Texas law that prohibits acts considered immoral by the Torah and much of the American public, Agudath Israel of America, has filed a "friend of the court" brief.

In contrast to a number of other national Jewish groups that joined a brief in support of the challenge -- including the American Jewish Committee, the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism and Hadassah -- Agudath Israel is urging the Court to uphold the constitutionality of the statute.

Agudath Israel says that it does not advocate the state's employment of its police power against persons who engage in immoral acts, the Orthodox group is "deeply concerned about the potential far-reaching consequences of a decision that states are constitutionally prohibited from doing so."

Any such decision, asserts the brief, would be premised on a determination that a state's interest in promoting social morality carries little or no constitutional weight. That conclusion, in turn, would likely invite legal challenges to a host of other laws that are based on conceptions of public morality, like those that regulate marriage by prohibiting polygamy or marriages among certain relatives.

"This genie," the brief warns, "once let out of the bottle, will not easily be restrained."

The brief cites a number of court decisions that clearly assume the State's legitimate interest in enacting laws governing private behavior in the larger interest of safeguarding public morality.

"The laws by which a society chooses to govern itself," the brief contends, "have, among other things, an educative function; they establish norms of conduct deemed acceptable by the society." Agudath Israel urges the Court to not "devalue the importance of such symbolism" in the case at issue.

The Agudath Israel brief, which was authored by the organization's staff attorneys Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Mordechai Biser and Abba Cohen, is prefaced by a recitation of the Jewish perspective on the issue "stated clearly in Leviticus."

The brief further takes note of the fact that the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, in its submission to the High Court, asserts its "support and affirm[ation]" for relationships considered immoral by the Torah, as well as for civil recognition of such relationships; and cites Bereishis' teaching that "all human beings are created in the Divine Image" as theological justification for its position in the case.

"Unlike our Reform brethren," the Agudath Israel brief asserts, "we believe that the Author of Genesis, in Whose Image we are all indeed created, also wrote Leviticus."

The Supreme Court is expected to decide the case in June.

 

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