activities they understood to be included within these verses. Is it possible that the biblical prohibition called mishk’vei ishah and later, by the Rabbis, mishkav zakhur, includes actions other than anal intercourse? These verses have been variously translated, but almost all readers conclude that they prohibit anal sex between men, with the first verse addressing only the insertive partner, and the second verse including the receptive partner. We have demonstrated that only one form of homosexual intimacy, anal intercourse between men, is prohibited at this level as an ervah. We must conclude that any Jew who seeks to fulfill the Torah's commandments must avoid this forbidden act. The responsum also insisted that Jewish law could not be interpreted any more permissively: In contrast, our colleagues Rabbis David Fine, Robert Fine and Myron Geller have argued that the verses in Leviticus should be understood to prohibit only those sexual relationships that offer no possibility of marriage. In an age when gay marriage is permitted by some jurisdictions, they argue, the Torah's ban is no longer universal. Although they present their reading as “the p’shat,” there is nothing simple or contextual about this interpretation. Nowhere does the passage mention marriage. The list of forbidden sexual relations includes menstrual sex, which can occur within a marital context. It is hard to accept that the Torah forbids bestiality only because it offers no opportunity for marriage. This reading, too, is sui generis — unsupported by either ancient or modern commentaries. The responsum described rabbinic prohibitions on sexual relations as mere fences, many of which, it said, the Conservative movement had already lifted. It compared Rabbinic prohibitions on homosexual conduct to strictures on a husband approaching or touching his wife during the Niddah (post-menstrual) period: However, our community does not enforce, and indeed does not accept, these severe prohibitions. We do not hold, as a matter of fact, that the laws of ”approach” are biblically mandated, but rather that they are in the category of rabbinic fences and borders that are all ultimately intended to protect against transgression of the fundamental biblical rules about sexual conduct. Just as the Sages of old exempted themselves from some of the severity of the laws against contact between the sexes between relatives,45 so have we concluded that average people can be trusted to maintain appropriate relations despite social kissing and hugging and moments alone together, even behind locked