MARCO RUBIO, GAY MARRIAGE, AND CATECHISM

        Until May 27, 2016 there were three Republicans that I was leaning towards supporting for the nomination in 2016: Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, and Marco Rubio. On May 28, 2015 these three men and two others (Ben Carson and Jeb Bush) were in a 5-way tie for first place in poll measuring support for the Republican Presidential nomination. Each man had 10%. On many issues I agree with the three I mentioned first. This is especially true with respect to gay marriage - I oppose it. In an interview with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network featured on Tuesday’s episode of The 700 Club, Senator Rubio (R-FL) warned that the momentum of marriage equality and other LGBT equality advances pose a threat to religious freedom. He lamented the fact the idea that opposition to LGBT equality is seen as “hate speech.”

       “We are at the water’s edge of the argument that mainstream Christian teaching is hate speech,” he explained, “because today we’ve reached the point in our society where if you do not support same-sex marriage, you are labeled a homophobe and a hater. So what’s the next step after that, after they’re done going after individuals? The next step is to argue that the teachings of mainstream Christianity, the catechism of the Catholic Church, is hate speech. That’s a real and present danger.”

       While I have no problem with his including the teachings of mainstream Christianity in his remarks, I would have been much more comfortable with a reference to traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs. Certainly Orthodox Judaism rejects homosexual marriage (I do not view either Reform or Conservative Judaism as traditional Judaism because they have endorsed gay marriage). But as this article will show, I am most uncomfortable with Rubio's reference to catechism of the Catholic Church. I don't believe that the Vatican has been staunch enough in its rejection of homosexual behavior, as is most evident by the large number of homosexual priests, the long running protection of such priests who have sexually molested young boys, and remarks by the current pope about homosexual behavior. He said:

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”  Francis spoke in Italian but used the English word “gay.”

       Who is he to judge? Supposedly he is the man most responsible for teaching Catholics what the Bible - all of what the Catholics have canonized including the Torah - has to say about homosexual behavior. There is no word in it that clouds this kind of behavior with "good will."

        I must confess that the very word catechism has personal meaning for me that is not there for most Jews because my older son was as a lad in 1984 put into a catechism class against his will. On his first day in his class he stood up and told the teacher, "I don't belong here because I am Jew." The boy was the product of a failed interfaith marriage that I had with his mother, who had promised to raise him as a Jew before he was given a Jewish ritual circumcision (brith milah).  When my son's teacher heard what he said, she told him, "Sit down, sometimes children your age don't know what they believe." He answered her by telling her, "Jesus said in John 4:22, 'You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.'  If salvation is from Jews, and I  am a Jew, why do I need the Catholic religion?" Yes, you are right. I taught him about Judaism at an early age. The teacher went down to the office and immediately reported my son's remark. The Church in question eventually removed him from the class, but another Catholic church baptized him against his will. Archbishop McCarthy of Miami later annulled the baptism. Supporting documents and press coverage is found in a recent article that I wrote about the Vatican recognizing a Palestinian State. What does all this have to do with Senator Rubio?

       Unlike in 2012, the Republican field of candidates for 2016 is outstanding (although too large). With 5 men in a dead heat, and three of them top choices by me, mistakes by any of them can be costly. I had to research Rubio's political positions to be sure that he was not going to be a tool of the Vatican, which I consider to be an enemy of Israel. What I found was that while Rubio previously spoke in favor of a two-state solution for Israel and the so-called Palestinians, he now realizes that it's no longer feasible. That puts Rubio in opposition to the Vatican. Rubio also opposes the Vatican's position about renewed relations between the U.S. and Cuba. And Rubio is much clearer about opposing homosexual behavior. All this means that he is still one my top three choices, but I am more comfortable with Governor Huckabee's longstanding Baptist support of Israel based on the fact that the Bible says God gave Israel to the Jews. There are of course other issues that are important to me, but I have not yet seen enough distance between these candidates on those issues to make my pick any clearer.

        I don't make choices based on the Torah Code, but what does the Code have to say about Rubio, his chances for being elected President, and the Vatican? Figure 1 may be something that Rubio might want to consider. On it the axis term is MARCO RUBIO at the 4th lowest skip of the name (in wrapped Torah). He is a Cuban-American, and CUBA is on the matrix at the same skip that his name has. Odds against that (before factoring in ELS rank 4 of his name) are about 24 to 1. However the most significant term is VATICAN which appears at skip -1. It was found at a special case skip (+/-1 or the absolute skip of the axis term) against odds of about 215 to 1. In the past the Vatican was verbally clear about homosexuality being a sin, although its actions have certainly not matched those words. But now Pope Francis points to good will on the subject, rather than what God indicated. There was no political correctness or consideration of good will to be found with the destruction of SODOM AND GOMORRAH, which are both on the matrix (4 lines above VATICAN). SODOM AND GOMORRAH appeared in the open text against odds of about 36 to 1. The closest to MARCO RUBIO a priori key word on the matrix was ISRAEL, but as the Torah is largely a book about Israel (which is mentioned 591 times in it), there was over a 93% chance that it would be found somewhere in the 1,421-letter matrix. Overall the matrix was found againt odds of about 50,642 to 1, but one very important key word is missing on it - PRESIDENT.

       Will Jewish support be a factor for him? Here it is important to understand which Jews he needs to reach out to. While I hope it will change next year, almost all Reform and Conservative Jews are Democrats, and they are not strong supporters of Israel. Nor do they really care about Jewish Law. They are politically correct, and morally wrong. Hillary Clinton likely has them in her pocket. But Orthodox Jews (like me) are largely Republican. These are the Jews that Rubio needs to reach. And while none of them have a story to tell about catechism class like I do, none of us are happy about the history of Crusades, the Inquisition, a Concordat between Hitler's Germany and the Vatican, and finally a Vatican endorsement of a Palestinian/terrorist State on Biblical and modern Israeli lands. So, if Rubio is smart, he will stay away from pushing the catechism issue. When I last checked the Torah Codes for the relative ranking of candidate names with the word President and the Hebrew Year for 2016, the results (which is being updated for new candidates) were as follows:

Figure 2 shows the Rubio matrix based on the lowest skip of Marco Rubio. Rubio ranked 4th when it was done. The top 4 candidates then are tied for the lead now along with Ben Carson who I did not search for originally. I will in time update this chart, but I think it is unlikely that it will change much.