As President Biden continues to staff his administration with contentious personnel chosen more for their race or sexual preference rather than qualifications, a group of 1,500 Orthodox Rabbis contested the nomination of “Rabbi” Sharon Kleinbaum to the U.S. Coalition on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) that monitors religious freedom abroad.
Lesbian “Rabbi”: anti-Israel
Kleinbaum received her ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, a non-Orthodox institution many tenets that do not conform to Halacha (Torah law). She is the spiritual leader of New York City’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah and is an active campaigner for civil marriage for gay couples. Kleinbaum is openly lesbian and has two daughters. She married Rabbi Margaret Wenig in 2008, though they later divorced. In 2018, Kleinbaum married Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Weingarten has been widely criticized for advocating for school closures during the pandemic, a policy that is deemed unnecessary by many public health experts.
Kleinbaum also sits on the board of the New Israel Fund, a left-wing extremist organization that promotes the demonization of Israel and the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Orthodox rabbis protest
“A person’s sexual preferences should be a private matter, and certainly irrelevant to prayer. Kleinbaum, by contrast, leads a congregation that insists ‘LGBTQ’ is a matter of identity,” Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the managing director at the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), told Fox News on Thursday. “At a time when religious people are persecuted worldwide for their personal, sincere beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman, and gender is permanent, biological, and determined at conception, placing Kleinbaum on a commission devoted to ensuring religious freedom sends precisely the wrong message and could hardly be more counter-productive.”
Despite the expressed displeasure of the Orthodox rabbis, presidential appointments to the commission do not require congressional approval.
Biden: Anti-religion
The Biden administration has acted in a manner that has many concerned about the future of religious freedom. Just before Biden took office, a federal court in North Dakota defended Roman Catholic health care providers from an Obamacare mandate forcing doctors and nurses to perform experimental transgender surgeries that violate Roman Catholic convictions. After Biden took office, the Department of Health and Human Services appealed that decision, seeking to reinstate the mandate forcing health providers to go against their religious convictions.
Biden has been a long-time advocate of the deceptively named Equality Act. Its proponents claim the Equality Act would ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In practice, the act would be used to force businesses to provide services that go against their religious beliefs. The act would also require health care providers to perform procedures that they object to on moral or religious grounds, i.e. abortions, euthanasia, gender reassignment.
Biden’s pro-abortion political agenda has caused complications in his personal relationship with the Catholic Church.
Biden has notoriously flipped on the issue of homosexuality. In 1973, Biden suggested that gay federal employees were “security risks”. In 1993, Biden voted to block the immigration of HIV+ individuals into the United States. In 1993, Biden voted for the bill that created “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy in the military. In 1994, Biden voted to cut off federal funding for schools that taught “acceptance of homosexuality as a lifestyle”. He opposed same-sex marriage, repeatedly stating that marriage was exclusively between a man and woman. This changed in 2012 when, as vice president, he broke ranks with President Obama, making a statement in support of same-sex marriage. His staff walked the statement back but his official policy now is in support of same-sex marriage.
More to come
The recent appointment seems to be a sign of things to come. On Thursday, Biden nominated Beth Robinson, an associate justice on the Vermont Supreme Court since 2011, to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Robinson played a critical role in paving the way for the legalization of same-sex marriage. If confirmed, she will be the first openly LGBT woman to serve on any federal circuit court.
Biden also appointed Rachel Levine to the position of the assistant secretary for health. Levine, a transgender who now identifies as a woman, was a controversial choice for more than gender issues. Levine came under fire for removing her 95-year-old mother from a personal care home shortly after she implemented a policy directing Pennsylvania’s nursing homes and certain care facilities to admit recovered COVID-19 patients who were treated at nearby hospitals.