Divri:
1. You had said, The biggest threat to Jewish religious liberty is the left.” I would agree that there are some on the left who have a problem with bris milah and shchitah and would also agree, as others have suggested that those views may surface more loudly one day, after they have their way on some other more “pressing” fronts. But the numbers and percentages of those on the left who have these views are far outnumbered by wackos on the extreme right who are avowed anti-semites and wish they could ship us out of here. Moreover, unlike these right-fanatics, very few of the left activists have an issue with the religion called “Judaism;” they are against these practices along the same lines as PETA protesting against eating steak.
2. You said” “Homosexuality and adultery . . . have been forbidden by many societies for years, not just on religious grounds.” I beg to differ. All such countries have at least a tradition of Christianity or Islam, whether or not they are still overtly religious. Greece was pre-Christianity and apparently didn’t have a problem with homosexuality.
3. In light of my argument for ‘live and let live’ rationale, you would in fact support legislation against avodah as I described it?
4. Seems we’ve lost the legislative fight on same sex marriages and other social issues. Even conservative judges have had to uphold this as a right based on the state constitutions. The best hope is that there is now a conservative supreme court. In the meantime, it’s clear to me that fighting harder legally or argumentatively only produces an equal and opposite response. Maybe the only hope is to convert their politics by abandoning the angry rhetoric. The plaintiff in Roe v. Wade ended up becoming a pro-lifer because she said the Chrisitian right was “nicer” than the left. L’havdil, when it comes to esrog, people aren’t concerned with just being yotzei, and go beyound mikar hadin. Maybe we have to see these social/morality laws as defining the absolute bottom of the barrel, and meanwhile build conservative values through programs and other means instead of politics, laws, and fighting, which isn’t working anyway. Not to mention, once the political tides turn, the political parties the frum world loves to bash will look at us as their enemy and good luck getting them to help us.
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