Torah! Torah! Torah!

I can't tell how much of this is true and how much is tabloid sensationalism, but the New York Post is reporting that Yeshiva University had to be threatened with major legal action in order for a transgender professor, Joy Ladin, to return to work. (She began transitioning after the university gave the celebrated poetry and literature professor tenure in 2006 and seems to have been on sabbatical for the past two years, perhaps working on her upcoming memoir, "Inside Out: Confessions of a Woman Caught in the Act of Becoming.") Is it just me, or is it particularly offensive when others who have been persecuted for just being who they turn around and do the exact same thing to their fellow human being? Give me a stupid redneck who hates me for being gay any day, but a black or a Jew or a (fill in the minority group here) who tells me I'm not entitled to equal rights? It's just galling. Needless to say, this case -- as it always does -- seems to come back to fundamental religious beliefs.

"He's not a woman. He's a male with enlarged breasts," said Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a senior dean at Yeshiva's rabbinical school and a professor of biology and medical ethics. "He's a person who represents a kind of amorality which runs counter to everything Yeshiva University stands for. There is just no leeway in Jewish law for a transsexual. There is no niche where he can hide out as a female without being in massive violation of Torah law, Torah ethics and Torah morality."

God help us them all.