Page 345 - EFI-RAV ZILBERSTIN_VOL 8.EFI-RAV ZILBERSTIN_VOL 8.1A

Pg: 345 - 11-Front 21-10-31

vulsion for natural marital relations, the desire for which the Creator
has instilled in man, and his longing for homosexual relations?

I have heard from medical scholars that many of them are inclined
to believe that this tendency is genetic, while others doubt this is
so. Should we decide that a deviant is born with this sick tendency,
he has a blemish and the relevant halachah will apply, as stated in
the Shulchan Aruch (Even Ha’ezer 39:5): “If a man marries a woman
without specifying anything and there is found on her person one of
the blemishes about which people are usually particular, it is uncer-
tain whether she is married.” In our case too, there is possible doubt
as to whether their marriage is automatically rendered null, because
it was entered into upon an erroneous understanding.

However if we understand this phenomenon as a lust, it may not
be considered a blemish. Rather this may resemble an evildoer who
marries, whose marriage bond is valid even when he said upon enter-
ing into the marriage, “On condition that I am righteous,” for we are
suspect that he may have had stirrings of repentance (Even Ha’ezer,
38,31). So it is in our case [i.e. a man’s sinful habits do not invalidate
a marriage even when their absence is made a precondition, all the
more so when they are not mentioned at all, for he is an otherwise
normal individual].

However, the Igros Moshe (Even Ha’eze 4, 113) does not agree with
this reasoning. He writes: “For we find that on the woman’s part too
a marriage can be erroneously entered into, in the case of a major
blemish [i.e. that the woman discovers in the man] as I have explained
in Igros Moshe (Even Ha’ezer 1, 79-80). Probably, the fact that the
husband is steeped in homosexuality, which is the worst and most
disgusting abomination and a disgrace for the whole family – and
all the more so for his wife if her husband chooses this disgusting
form of cohabitation over having relations with her – the marriage
was certainly contracted erroneously. It is clear to us that no wom-
an would agree to marry such a corrupt, disgusting, contemptible
person. If as soon as she learned of his behavior she left him, it is
logical that if she cannot obtain a get [a halachic divorce] from him,
she can be permitted to remarry by virtue of her first marriage having

Must a Homosexual Marry? 2 329