Dear Rabbi Eidensohn: 

It is my belief and conclusion that the situation in American jails is completely immoral and is greatly contributing to the decline of this society.  I also believe that, using Torah as a guide, we are being judged on it.  I am referring specifically to the routine homosexual rape of male, especially young male, inmates.  This happens continuously and little action is taken on it.  Further, it appears to me here that ideologies on both sides of the political spectrum contribute to this situation.  On the "liberal" side, many groups don't address it.  I believe a significant reason they do not is because highlighting this situation undermines the misinformation of homosexual behavior being genetically programmed - "born that way".  I recently e-mailed the ACLU and asked why they specifically did not address homosexual rape in the prisons.  I received no response.  I also read a report of a major organization - I believe it was Amnesty International - who were preparing a report on rapes in the prison system but did not want to hear about homosexual rape of men.  So it seems they have a conflict Here is a rights issue if there ever was one (cruel and unusual punishment), but these groups don't want to undermine this hard fought notion (disinformation in fact) of homosexuality being genetic.  So they decide not to act.  Unfortunately as well the" Conservative" community has not acted sufficiently out of I believe both indifference to the situation and a desire to be tough on crime and criminals. 

The result is a situation reminiscent here of both humanity before the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah.  Many of these men further are contracting AIDS from being raped.    

I am interested in hearing your analysis and thoughts from a Torah perspective regarding people who break the law, society's obligation in their punishment, and Torah's view of a society that knowingly lets this abuse occur on this scale.

Thank you.

Jay

Jay,

Here is our answer, in the form of an article on this very subject.

Rape, Religion, and Slaves 

By Rabbi David Eidensohn

       The pending war against Iraq and the struggle against terrorism is about religion, whether you like to say it or not. The gay issue is also about the bible, essentially. The pundits are busy now with militant Islam and the moderates. Why, they ask, can't the Saudis and the other fanatic regimes just update and moderate? Those who want to include homosexuals as clergy and accept gay marriage say that the bible has to evolve and become more inclusive. The religious person, when faced with progressive demands, is put on the defensive and in a bind. If you agree to evolve, where does it stop?

      Those, like Daniel Pipes, the noted expert on Islam, who preach a moderating influence on Islam to bring it into the modern world, point to other religions that have changed. Mr. Pipes has just published a column pointing out that the Big Three religions once all accepted slavery and banned taking monetary interest, but times have changed, and some of these religions now don't accept slavery and do accept interest. He mentions Judaism as an example. For a religious person, this idea is unsettling. Are our truths just there to be rearranged? If so, who needs it?

       A UPI article, "Prison Rapes Spreading Deadly Diseases" in the Washington Times of July 26, 2002, says, "One in five men have been sexually assaulted in prison, and one in ten have been raped." Women are assaulted and raped as well, often by guards. The Center of Disease Control Prevention News Update (July 29, 2002) quotes this article to show how AIDS, HIV, TB and other diseases are spread by rape in prisons. People are attacked, get HIV, and are then released into the general population and spread the disease.

      Not only does society have to spend fortunes on an inmate, especially a sick one, but the sick inmate rapes and infects others, and spreads the disease inside and outside of the prison. Prisons are simply houses of horror, where people with nothing to do rot and seek relief in any kind of sex they can get, which is usually the kind that produces the worst diseases. What does the bible say about this?

      In the bible, prison was not a way of life. It was not a home to a large percent of the population. It was not somewhere that a decent person who made a mistake became a hardened criminal. Prisons were not ticking time bombs for the society that built them. If a person committed a crime, they remained a person. They were punished with lashes or slavery. Let us take a look at prison and the biblical way.

      John could not control himself. He needed drugs. He begged a friend for relief, but the friend said only if John would help in a drug deal. So John helped, and was caught. In New York State, such a person has entered the zero tolerance world of the Rockefeller Laws, and will rot in jail for a long time. Now, let's not talk about John's experiences in jail, as we have already alluded to them. Let us now take John to a biblical court. John comes to court, and is flogged. He is sore, and has been humiliated as well. However, in a few days, he will be running around like new. Nobody will rape him. He doesn't need to have sex from some sick man. He can remember his problem and get help. Let us assume, however, that John makes another mistake. He is caught again.

      If he is in New York State, or any other enlightened jurisdiction, John will be put into jail, with no sex, no freedom, no job, just sitting locked up like a pig in a sty, but getting assaulted and raped, beaten and terrorized by the gangs and bullies in the jail. There are also sadistic guards, and all of this is the product of the enlightened secular system.

      John now, in our story, comes to a biblical court. What? You are here again? Obviously, you are not going to get better yourself, and you are a menace to yourself and to society. You stole money, and you owe the owner that amount. You must pay the state and society for violating their laws. You are going to pay off every cent, and then become a regular citizen like everyone else. Since you are incapable of acting normally, we are going to sell you as a slave. Now, of course, the enlightened ones will roll their eyes and say, "Oh, dear, did he really say that?"

      A biblical slave is not a Southern or Arab slave. A biblical slave is simply a worker. Society is going to turn this drug bum into a worker. Yes, there is a whip, but who cares?  Would you rather be in a New York State prison? If John acts tough and brazen, he is going to be whipped so badly that he will reform. There is no time for therapists for lost cases. The whip talks sense to some people who don't understand other languages. John knows, for the first time in his life, that there are rules. If he breaks them, wham.

      Let's return to that whip, which, to the enlightened progressive liberal, is worse than jail. Is it? Dear enlightened progressive liberal: would you rather sit in jail for five years, getting raped, not having normal sex, not able to travel, to move, to be a free person, a slave of brutal guards, or would you rather get a few lashes and be free? What is your reply? You, of course, would take a whipping any time. However, "society" cannot have whipping. That is "cruel and unusual punishment." Is getting raped by someone with AIDS not "cruel and unusual punishment"? Is forcing a young man or woman to go without sex for years not "cruel and unusual punishment"?

      The secular liberals have all kind of programs to better the world. One problem with these programs is that they often run in reverse. The biblical people wanted to stop AIDS by reporting every infected person, as is done with all Sexually Transmitted Diseases. If this had been done, there would be no AIDS today in America, and possibly the world. The liberals insisted that AIDS was a civil rights program, not a medical problem. They took AIDS and HIV off of the list of infectious diseases in New York State and other gay lobby states. The result is almost a million Americans with HIV, and of course, the liberals are screaming that we have to spend more money on AIDS.

      The biblical people wanted to spend the American medical dollar on a cure for cancer, but the liberals said that cancer, diabetes, heart disease and the mental illnesses that affect most Americans are not important. AIDS, associated with a minority, homosexuals, is more important. They spent fortunes empowering the gay lobby, giving it millions and billions of dollars to promote homosexuality, but last year the disease ratcheted up, by 25 percent. All around America, homosexuals, after receiving so much money, are sicker than they ever were. The liberal is happy with dying and sick homosexuals, as long as the bigots are denied. The biblical person does not want homosexuals dying of a disease that could be prevented, and does not want anyone dying from a disease that could be stopped just by treating it like a disease.

      There is a biblical way to look at women. There is also a secular way. A man recently beat his wife, and was jumped by his pet dog, a pit bull. The man killed the dog with a knife. The judge put the man in jail for ninety days for beating his wife, and for two years for killing his dog. Get this: kill a dog in self-defense and get two years. But beat a woman, your wife, and you get ninety days. A secular woman is worse than a bitch.

      The biblical world knows there is a heaven, but earth is down here, and we think clearly about it. We don't invent ridiculous ideas to ruin our children, but liberals do. Every minority that liberals helped was destroyed. The blacks had a strong family and a cohesive community, even many large and flourishing businesses, before the liberals helped the blacks. Now blacks are so ruined that a recent survey showed that black parents who divorce don't go through the formalities. They often just ignore the whole problem of marriages and divorce and live separately. Blacks were not criminals in the twentieth century, and New York City was so safe that girls in the Orthodox community often were sent on errands in the middle of the night. Would anyone think of doing that today? The liberals turned a black community into what it is today, destroyed.

      The liberals then turned to women. Recent books and articles tell of the desperate situation of women, how women who make it in corporate life suddenly burst out crying when they realize they will never have children, or will probably never marry. Secular liberals led them down this road. Be a man, they were told, not a woman. However, they are women. Biblical girl lets a man court her, and her parents check the boy out thoroughly, and help with the early years of marriage, and stay in touch afterwards. Secular woman sleeps with every person in town, finally takes a fling at marriage, gets divorced half the time, and spends the rest of her life in court over visitation rights.

      Then some radical liberals decided that women must become lesbians. Gloria Steinhem led the movement, through NOW, and proclaimed, "A woman needs a man like a squirrel needs a bicycle." At the age of 67, Gloria threw in the towel and married. After all, some people do get wise with passing years. There are thousands of girls and women today poisoned by the culture, by the liberal and radical television and movies, songs and public schools, colleges and media, so badly, they will never be happy. Biblical woman is not into these things. She is busy with her family and children, and instead of watching some horrendous gay television show, she will talk to her parents, family, friends, children and even enjoy visits from couples, husband and wife, because in our community, men stick to their own. In the secular world, if a man sees a woman, it is not safe; marriage means very little, nor do children figure as prominently as desire. Therefore, in the secular world, any time a man talks to a woman there is a stress that can produce cortisone on the brain.

      Speaking of colleges, at the end of July, it was reported in the press that Princeton had broken into Yale's online, stealing information. Were the liberals upset? Was this Princeton-gate? Nobody got fired. The dean of Harvard's divinity school had to resign because he had lurid movies on his computer, but since he was a liberal, he went in peace. If a religious person had done such things, the liberal media would headline it. This is "balance", promoted by the liberal media, and defined as weighing all facts by whether or not they disrupt biblical and family values.  When the Gay Lobby promotes mass death and disease, the secular liberals just demand more money for it to produce fraud and hate against biblical people. Liberals are not embarrassed because the New York State HIV laws allowed mothers, infected with AIDS, to nurse and kill their babies, for many years. The state prohibited doctors from telling the mother that she had AIDS, because this might lead to "discrimination against homosexuals."

      Google refused to allow this website to advertise, because it is a "hate" site. What hate do we promote? We are "anti" the Gay Lobby. Does this make us haters? Google explained: If you are anti, you are a hater. I protested that the Gay Lobby is a political movement with goals that I oppose. If I oppose taking AIDS off of the list of infectious diseases in New York State and California, am I a hater? Another Internet directory, becoming very powerful, is DMOZ, which selects who is to be searched when somebody asks about homosexuality and gays. We are not listed there, either. The liberals believe in allowing people to say unpopular things only when these things promote secular radicalism.

      For centuries, the secular radicals and liberals have been promoting this and that, rebelling against monarchy, capitalism, men, whites, etc. Wherever they came to power, blood flowed, or destruction followed. Maybe the biblical ideas should be re-visited. Or is that encouraging something worse than rape.

      A biblical person knows that money has value, and we don't live in fantasy. A problem with the liberal transformation of society is that we can't afford it. One in seven Americans works for state and local government. States cannot afford this, and indeed, as David Broder of the Washington Post is pointing out in recent columns, the states are close to bankruptcy, and nobody cares. This is done by not paying debts. An article by Paul Krugman in the New York Times shows that American states survive by cooking the books. The past governor of New Jersey didn't pay into the pension fund. She stole the money to spend on the liberal programs and other things the state has to do. How old are you? Do you know what your state is doing with your pension money? If you are a liberal, you can live in fantasy. A biblical person lives with the fear of the future, in the other world, and this world as well. We have to pay our debts. The secularist is happy to live for the moment. Don't talk about the Federal Debt of over six trillion dollars, with a contingency debt for Social Security of 10 trillion dollars, in an economy that just went into reverse. Just print more money and promote progressiveness.

      The turmoil in the Middle East, punctuated this week by the death of three princes of Saudi Arabia as the Saudi king lies ill in Switzerland, is about people who want to destroy the infidels. The liberals cannot ignore it, but even as our enemies crank up the germ warfare and nuclear weapons to deliver to our doors, some liberals are protesting and presenting better ideas. Their world is one of fantasy, and their basic fantasy is that reality is what they want.

Europe has gotten rid of religion and has now welcomed terrorism, as has the United Nations, which has officially endorsed terrorism in Israel. Some secular liberals refuse to think evil of people who blow up a school bus. That is how they do it in secular liberal land.

      Today, July 31, 2002, the liberal dominated United States Senate has voted down a bill to help the helpless aged and poor people with prescription drugs. Biblical people spend the little money they have on their sick parents. But secular liberals need that money, to change the world.

D. Eidensohn's poem "The Wall" won an International Poetry Contest. His poems appear in
"The Best Poems of the Twentieth Century"

© copyright Rabbi David Eidensohn Dec 2,001 --- webmaster --- contact us