homophobe Tony Perkins to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, President Joe Biden is nominating a lesbian rabbi.Biden Friday announced his intent to nominate Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, leader of LGBTQ-focused Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, to the commission, a bipartisan federal government body that monitors the right to religion and belief abroad.Kleinbaum became Congregation Beit Simchat Torah’s first full-time rabbi in 1992.
The New York Cit synagogue was founded in 1973 to serve the needs of queer Jews. Kleinbaum arrived “at the height of the AIDS crisis when the synagogue was in desperate need of pastoral care and spiritual leadership,” a White House press release notes.