Rabbi Yair Hoffman of the GLBTPed article writes to me!!! I'm so thrilled.

Rabbi Yair Hoffman is a loathsome and despicable creep whom I never heard about until responses to his Op-Ed piece “We Are Under Attack by the LGBTPed Community” started popping up on my FB feed. The original article was printed in 5 Towns Times and argued against banning conversion therapies. As you can probably tell from that title, it was written with a rather enthusiastic tone. To say the least. Even if we ignore that "ped" after LGBT (yeah it stands for pedophiles), he is arguing that his religious freedom to abuse and torture gay teenagers with bullshit conversion therapy is being limited by the government that would curtail the freedom to abuse and torture gay teenagers.

Of course, one cannot ignore the ped part because that's the part that forced a bullshit apology out of him. Considering the fact that pedophiles are preying on Jewish children and have been preying for years with the implicit consent of their communities. And some of them may very well be using the "oh you are having questions about your sexuality? Well sit on my lap and tell me all about it" gambit. I actually wonder which one Yair Hoffman is.

Anyhow, he wrote a retraction, but it was the kind of retraction that sounds good only to the person speaking it. Call it the Michael Vicks apology. Or Chris Brown. It was the "sorry I used the word pedophile, but I still believe in torturing and abusing gay teenagers with gay-to-straight programs" apology. So he basically just restated his original position of a government imposing its "human rights" and "decency" upon his community.

I saw it, commented. I noted that he never said that he was wrong or that he was sorry. He regrets it. I said that he was a loathsome human being. You know how I get.

Anyhow, he emailed me -

Dear Sir,

My apology was sincere and was accepted by many of the lgbt community. They understood the emotional turmoil why I made this terrible blunder. The editor and relatives of some in the lgbt community felt that further bringing the issue to fore would bring further hurt to vulnerable members of the community.

There will be some who will not accept my apology and call for my death, continue calling me "Hitler", label me not a real Rabbi, state that I am no Ben Torah, or call for me to be thrown in the path of a moving train. I cannot help this. I made an error. I hurt people needlessly. I am sorry for it.

But there is such a thing as Teshuvah in Judaism. Some will continue the name-calling, but others have reached out in friendship.

Hatzlacha,

YH

So instead of emailing him back, I write this blog post. There is so much wrong with this email, so allow me to go with a list.

1. "was accepted by many of the lgbt community" - what a coincidence. Some of my best friends are black too.
2. "they understood the emotional turmoil" - Emotional turmoil? Really? What kind of emotional turmoil is Rabbi Yair Hoffman going through when he writes a venomous attack on gay teenagers and ropes them in with pedophiles? Did Rabbi Yair Hoffman just come out of the closet? Because unless Yair Hoffman is a closet case with serious issues, there is no "emotional turmoil" to understand.
3. "a terrible blunder" - Oopsy! I just put pedophiles in the same category as gay people. Gosh, how could I make that mistake? But hey, we all make these kinds of blunders. Just the other day, my friend was talking about how the civil rights movement helped to advance the cause of black people and rapists. When I pointed out that his blunder, he apologized sincerely and then talked about his emotional turmoil.
4. "vulnerable members of the community" - ok, the editor and the lgbt wanted to protect the vulnerable members of the community - but considering that the members of the community are "vulnerable" because arrogant pieces of shit like Rabbi Yair Hoffman call for their "conversion therapy" and view them as being pretty much the same as pedophiles, I don't know if he's being hypocritical or tone deaf.
5. "there will be some who..." - Oh poor Rabbi Yair Hoffman. Of course, he does get to say that he made an error (a blunder no less) and he's sorry for that error/blunder - but not for the conversion therapy that he's pushing.
6. "but others have reached out in friendship" - Dude, if you want to make friends, this is not the way to do it.

So what about his overall theme that he deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt for teshuva? The problem is that I don't buy it. There's teshuva and there's forgiving someone who is punching you in the face when they are punching you in the face. It's very obvious that the next editorial by Rabbi Yair Hoffman will also be in favor of conversion therapy and against homosexuals. And if it's not the next one, then it will be the one after that. In fact Rabbi Yair Hoffman has many many more homophobic editorials just bubbling in his diseased brain. And he's going to unleash them all.

Rabbi Yair Hoffman has potential for teshuva, but he's not even trying. He's trying to cover his ass and play to his homophobic base. But ok, let's take him seriously. What should Rabbi Yair Hoffman do to make teshuva?

He can either come out of the closet and apologize for not being brave enough to fight his internalized homophobia and write just as many editorials about his newfound open homosexuality as he's written to condemn homosexuals and keep them as the "vulnerable members of the community." And then he can get married to a dude and invite all of his former fans.

Or he can set up three gay couples in a way that leads to marriage. That's the Jewish superstition - you set up three couples and you go to Heaven. Of course, many Jews don't count gay couples. I do.

Oh sure, those might not be the only ways that he can do teshuva but right now, off the top of my head, those are the only ways that I would buy.

At very least, he can stop whining about his "blunder."