Alleged Mikva Voyeur Rabbi Falsely Claimed to Have Coined the Republican Catch Phrase "Family Values"

By Shmarya Rosenberg
Failed Messiah
October 20, 2014

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2014/10/alleged-mikva-voyeur-rabbi-claims-to-have-coined-the-republican-catch-phrase-family-values-234.html

Rabbi Barry Freundel, who was arrested last week for allegedly secretly videotaping naked women preparing to immerse in the his community's mikvah (ritual bath), claims he created the Republican Party's catch phrase 'family values" and was the man behind the US Military's don't ask, don't tell policy on homosexuality.

Above: Rabbi Barry Freundel

Alleged Mikva Voyeur Rabbi Falsely Claimed To Have Coined The Republican Catch Phrase "Family Values"

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Rabbi Barry Freundel, who was arrested last week for allegedly secretly videotaping naked women preparing to immerse in his community's mikvah (ritual bath), claims he created the Republican Party's catch phrase 'family values" and was the man behind the US Military's don't ask, don't tell policy on homosexuality.

In one of his books, Contemporary Orthodox Judaism's Response To Modernity, Freundel writes that an aide to then-VIce President Dan Quayle heard Freundel use the term in a Shabbat drasha (sermon) in his synagogue and the aide to her boss about it and included the term in a speech writen for Quayle. Quayle added in criticism of a Murphy Brown episode and the speech – and the term "family values" – became history.

On the Jewish Values Online website, Freundel was asked the following question:

"What is the Jewish view on "don't ask, don't tell" and gays serving openly in the U.S. military? Does it matter that gays serve openly in the Israeli military?"

Freundel answered this way:

I will reveal something in this response that only a few people know.

The military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was based on an article called "Homosexuality and Halakhah" that appeared in The Journal of Halakha and Contemporary Society in the mid-late 1980's.

The article took the position that in Jewish law there is no such individual as a homosexual (there is no term in Jewish legal literature for "homosexual"). The only thing Judaism has is a Biblical prohibition against homosexual activity. What follows is that an individual who never engages in such activity but only has desires for same gender sex bears no opprobrium in Jewish law and carries no special designation. Further, someone who privately acts on these desires should be made welcome in a synagogue just as many people who do not fullfill all the laws are made comfortable, as long as they do not publically advocate for or display that violation. The article goes on in this way, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US military used it as the basis of the idea that all individuals may serve as long as they do not proclaim themselves publicly as to what they did or thought about in private.

As such the military's current policy in this regard is very much in line with Jewish thought.

The Israeli military follows Israeli law not Halakha or Jewish law, and the two legal systems are not the same.

Oh, by the way, the author of the article used by the Joint Cheifs and the author of this response just might be the same person.

[Hat Tip: Mark Pelta (don't ask, don't tell); family values Michael Gonen via Mark Pelta.]

Update 2:07 pm CDT – The Republican Party Platform adopted on August 16, 1988 uses the term "family values" and "traditional family values" several times. Dan Quayle's Murphy Brown / Family Values speech was given in May 19, 1992 – almost four years later. This means Freundel was either mistaken or, more likely, was gilding his own lilly – i.e., lying.

Why more likely?

Because US President George Herebert Walker Bush (Bush 1) used the term in a 1990 letter about the Washington DC eruv. (Please see paragraph 38.)

That letter was written to Kesher Israel – Freundel's synagogue.

So Freundel is also a liar.