The Reform movement has once again made an attempt at the impossible: to find some way of normalizing homosexual relationships within the context of Judaism.

The Reform Movement recently published an expanded manual for the inclusion of homosexuals and transgender individuals, including list of three blessings to be said on the occasion of a sex change operation.

The 500-page Kulanu: A Program for Implementing Gay and Lesbian Inclusion contains among other things services for same-sex commitment and marriage ceremonies as well as advice for the inclusion of GBLT individuals in the community.

The original edition of Kulanu was published 10 years ago, and was considered at the time to be a modern and daring step for the movement, which had recognized homosexual individuals as legitimate and equal members of the community three decades prior.

I wont go into the problems surrounding such ideas as homosexuality being a defining factor of personal identity. I will only say that Foucault was self-evidently correct when he described it as a 19th century invention conducive to social control.

The more salient point is the futility of the Reform movement's efforts. There is no particular problem with inclusion of those who prefer homosexual acts to heterosexual acts in the community; the problem lies in the attempt to present these acts as compatible with normative behavior as defined by Judaism. Personal opinions aside, such a project is quite simply doomed.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious: both the primary and secondary texts of Judaism consider homosexual acts an abomination and expressly forbid them. The Bible is less clear regarding homosexual acts between women, but the secondary commentaries are not. Maimonides' Mishnah Torah even extends these prohibitions to the case of the hermaphrodite: permitting heterosexual intercourse with him/her but forbidding homosexual intercourse.

The Reform movement is, of course, motivated by the best of intentions, none of which make the slightest difference in the long run. Their efforts to sanctify homosexual acts and relationships will always be jury-rigged and flailing attempts which must existence in permanent conflict with Judaism's concepts of normative behavior.

In some ways, there is nothing particularly new about this. The Reform movement has always prided itself on its willingness to take the proverbial knife to the law, excising that which it deems archaic and inappropriate. Orthodoxy has done the same in its past, but its methodology was to do so from within the law, while Reform has generally taken the God's-eye view of things, preferring radical surgery to the slow process of exegesis. This may make Reform more relevant in the short term, but in the long term it alienates Reform not only from other strains of Judaism but from Judaism itself.