This chapter tells how one Jewish denomination, the Reconstructionists, came to accept gay men and lesbians in their school for training rabbis in 1984, making Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) the first school for training rabbis to admit and ordain openly gay and lesbian students and only the second denomination in the United States to formally allow gay and lesbian religious leadership. This move was particularly bold at a time when other religious organizations, even liberal ones, were actively barring gay men and lesbians from the clergy. The story of RRC’s shift in policy between 1979 and 1992 reveals the tangled and uneven nature of institutional and ideological change in sexual and religious mores. At first glance, much about the shifts in RCC’s processes and practices does not seem “religious”—if by that term we mean formal teaching, ritual practice, or textual interpretation. But institutional practices and decisions about policy were also deeply tied to, shaped by, and productive of religious meanings. The story of how RRC came to accept the ordination of gays and lesbians as rabbis highlights the complicated relationship between policy and practice.
Changing childhoods: Using queer theory and intersectional methods to reconsider the epistemic resources of children with gay and lesbian parents
