The Episcopal Church will now allow priests to conduct services blessing same-sex relationships. The denomination’s House of Bishops approved the policy Monday, and delegates to the national convention approved the measure on Tuesday becoming the largest U.S. religious denomination to approve such a ritual.

What’s your response?

Is this an appropriate theological response? Is this a good compromise?”

If there is such a thing as a Jewish marriage ethic, then its goal is to promote relationships that are mutually respectful, caring, loving, and monogamous, and to discourage promiscuity and dangerous, unhealthy relationships. We cannot welcome homosexual couples into our congregations and then pretend that their relationships do not exist. We must search for ways to address who God made each of us to be within the context of our faith communities. Is the word “blessing” versus “marriage” a matter of semantics? Probably. But so what?! Fear of the other must never trump our love for each other. That’s what the Torah teaches me.