The JTA reports, “A group of Massachusetts rabbis backed a state court’s ruling legalizing gay marriage. In a half-page ad in the Boston Globe, 95 rabbis from the Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform movements called for the Massachusetts legislature to support the state Supreme Court’s ruling that homosexuals have the right to marry. Rabbi Daniel Judson of Temple Beth David in Canton told JTA that he felt the media wrongly portrayed all clergy as opposing gay marriage. The $18,000 ad ran as state lawmakers prepared to consider a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages starting in 2006, and reclassifying any gay marriages that take place until then as civil unions.”

Likewise, “The leader of the Reform movement’s political arm spoke out against a proposed Constitutional amendment on marriage. Rabbi David Saperstein, executive director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said Wednesday at a press conference of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, that conservative leaders are manipulating religion to justify oppression of gays and lesbians. ‘As long as injustice remains pervasive within our community, we will continue this fight for equality until our dream of equal rights for all is realized,’ he said, calling a proposed amendment on marriage a ‘thinly veiled attempt to codify homophobia.'”