What unites us is our unwavering support for equal legal marriage rights for same-sex couples. Some of our members are offering written testimony, and as of today 166 Maine religious leaders have signed our declaration in support of marriage equality. A few of them are here today. In my own religious tradition, we believe that love is the most holy and universal of bonds. Love should be judged not by the gender of its partners, but by the mutuality and tenderness of its expression.

We recognize that there is passionate debate about Biblical interpretation and about whether marriage between same-sex partners should be given religious approval. We are here to bear witness that many religious leaders and religious communities honor and bless the love and marriage of same-sex partners. But your job today is not to settle ecclesiastical disputes, but rather to ensure justice and fairness for all Maine citizens, without favor or prejudice.

Some religious leaders say that marriage would be meaningless if procreation is not possible. I strongly disagree. My wife and I have been married for nearly thirty years, and have no children, and yet our marriage gives great meaning to our lives. Why would clergy like myself support marriage equality for lesbians and gays? Because it is good, right and fair. I believe in marriage. Good marriages benefit the entire community. Legal marriage promotes family stability and cohesiveness. Marriage promotes financial security, long-term commitment and faithfulness. I believe these are good things. They are good for straight families and they are good for gay families.

And so I make a conservative case for marriage equality: marriage promotes family values that should be available to all families, not just straight families. These are our family values: in our family, everyone is valued. Because we believe in fairness and equal treatment, all families deserve access to the legal and financial protections and the human dignity contained in civil marriage. Therefore, we urge you to pass LD 1020 without amendment or revision. Thank you.

I speak in favor of LD 1020 from two different perspectives. As Rabbis, we come from a tradition that recognizes that every human being is created in the divine image: human beings we like, even human beings that we don't like, and yes, even human beings who engage in behavior of which we may not approve. The Jewish tradition also recognizes God's statement in the Book of Genesis that it is not good for a human being to be alone. In our view, marriage is not only for raising children, but also very much for companionship.

The best scientific knowledge of our time tells us that gay men and lesbians did not choose that orientation any more than someone else chooses to be heterosexual. Gay men and lesbians, like the rest of us, are created in the image of God, and God said it's not good for any human being to be alone. In that case, I look at this issue and I think, "Who am I, who are we as a human society, to tell people that they have to live alone or live a lie?" As a Rabbi, as a person of faith, I believe it is a God-given right for each one of us to make family with whomever we choose.

I know that there are some religious people who are telling this committee that God is opposed to gay marriage. Well, first of all I would suggest that anyone who purports to know the mind of God is treading on potentially dangerous ground. If we could define God, if we could understand God, it wouldn't be God anymore. But also, as Reverend Worth said a moment ago on behalf of the Religious Coalition, such testimony to this committee is as irrelevant as my testimony that I believe God would favor this bill. Whether or not gay marriage is religiously the right thing or the wrong thing? That's for each of us to decide as individuals, but under our constitution, it's not for the state to decide between different religious views of legislation.

Before I was a Rabbi, I was an attorney, and as a recovering attorney I also see this as a civil rights issue, and that's something that is very much in the role of the state to decide. There was a time when many states told men and women of different colors that they could not join together to create a family. It wasn't natural, some people said; it wasn't the way things were meant to be, they said. I'm very proud of my country that we have realized so many ways in which we have discriminated against our fellow citizens and have been wrong, and we have changed that, as we have most recently demonstrated by electing a biracial person as president. As a nation we have learned that people are equal even as they are different. If two men or two women want to form a stable family, I submit that it is very much in the interest of the state to encourage such stable, loving families. I urge you to support LD 1020. I thank you for your attention.