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Supreme CourtFlash 90

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) today expressed strong support for the position of the Israeli government to limit adoption of children to heterosexual, married couples, save in exceptional circumstances.

Even setting aside the Bible's strong prohibition against and moral condemnation of homosexual behavior, Senior Rabbinic Fellows of the CJV pointed to comprehensive demographic surveys revealing the alarming negative impact upon children of same-sex parenting.

The New Family Structures Study showed that adults raised by same-sex partners report significantly and often dramatically higher rates of having been sexually abused as a minor, coerced sexual activity, sexually-transmitted infection, suicidal ideation, infidelity and even unemployment. The survey concluded that the data "clearly reveals that children appear most apt to succeed well as adults... when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father."

"Notwithstanding political correctness, every child deserves a chance to be reared by both a mother and a father, each of whom empowers the child to grow up and enter the greater society with the fullest benefit of parenting by both genders," explained Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, adjunct professor of law and a CJV Senior Rabbinic Fellow.

His colleague Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey, commented that "the Israeli government is correct and prudent in putting the best interests of children ahead of the social engineering illusions of radical groups."

And a third Senior Rabbinic Fellow, Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, on the editorial board of Jewish Action magazine and a member of the New York Bar, concluded by saying that "Jewish values derive from our patriarch Abraham, who defied immoral societal norms and introduced a Divine moral code. It is time to again defy the trends and take a moral and courageous stand on behalf of every child."

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), directed by prominent rabbinic leaders and representing hundreds of rabbis across North America, articulates an authentic Jewish perspective on current events, and promotes Jewish values through writing and teaching derived from traditional Jewish thought.