Like most Americans, I was horrified by the cold-blooded killings in Orlando, Fla., of 49 members of the LGBTQ community. This horrific event was the worst, but by no means the only hate crime perpetrated against this community.

Upon subsequent investigation, it appears that the shooter might have been a self-hating gay person, but this does not erase the hate crime aspect. Some Americans still see this community as the “other,” a category that historically has included the Native Americans, Irish Americans, African Americans, Jews, Catholics and now Muslim Americans.

When I attended a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando tragedy, I heard speakers challenge us to change the way this community is often seen and treated.

I have long been a member of Circle of Faith in Pittsburgh and the Butler LGBTQ Interfaith Network, two organizations of clergy and people of faith that support the LGBTQ community, but I feel called to do even more. None of the members of my family or I are members of this community. What spurs me to become increasingly active is my strong opposition to injustice in any form.

I remembered that a proposed ordinance came before the Butler City Council five years ago that would make it illegal to discriminate against the LGBTQ and special needs community in jobs and housing. This proposed ordinance failed in 2011. Naively perhaps, I thought the time to revisit this ordinance was now, with Orlando still in the national consciousness.

Honestly, I can’t believe that in America in 2016, discrimination against any group is legal.

Shouldn’t all Americans have the same rights under law? Historically, of course, some rights extended only to white men of property. After periods of great activism and effort, those rights were extended to others. The LGBTQ community is only the latest to seek these legal protections for themselves.

Some conservative Christian groups cite a literal reading of Leviticus 20:13 as their reason for rejecting and condemning this community. As a member of the Jewish people, to whom Leviticus and the other four books of the Torah were given, I acknowledge the text. However, there are other laws calling for the death of a disobedient son or someone who does not fully respect the Sabbath. Strict enforcement of these laws would result in a very small population of the Abrahamic faiths.

We Jews have long had a tradition of “wrestling with the Torah,” much like our patriarch Jacob wrestled with the angel until dawn. We are taught that we must always “wrestle” with Scripture because the simple, surface interpretation is not sufficient for understanding. Some of the questions we ask are: What did this mean for the generation of Hebrews to whom it was given? For later generations? For the present generation? For me personally?

Far from watering down the Scripture, it comes alive for each generation and each student.

Rabbis, sages and philosophers have concluded that the LGBTQ community is to be embraced and accepted. Indeed, three of the four major Jewish movements ordain openly gay clergy. For the vast majority of Jews in America, supporting and embracing this community is a non-issue.

My personal mantra addressing this is a slight variation on Genesis 1:27 — We are all created in God’s image — no exceptions.

Additionally, I wish to respond to a letter to the editor from Pastor David L. Fisher published July 12. Pastor Fisher mourns court rulings that have changed the definition of family and concludes that we have lost our republic and democracy. I disagree strongly.

A celebratory Fourth of July op-ed piece by Tony Norman in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette deftly chronicles the founding of our republic and democracy. He writes: “a people weighed down by colonial exploitation embraced a revolutionary idea — ‘freedom’ shouldn’t be the exclusive reserve of those who consider themselves the very top of the social order. Once this revolutionary idea became something worth fighting and dying for, a strange and ornery people who would one day come to be known as Americans were born.”

History shows that this “ornery people” has continued to use the freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution to extend these rights to all Americans.

Norman wrote that some “flag-waving amnesiacs believe that our history is better thought of as static, not dynamic. Change spurred by protest causes suspicion and fear.” Much American blood was shed in the Civil War and after, before this right was extended to black Americans. Women organized and marched and lobbied for almost 100 years before they were given the right to vote. This is the American story — recognizing a wrong and working to address it. Change is what America is all about.

The LGBTQ community is only the latest group to seek recognition and enforcement of constitutional rights. Even if you believe they are “sinners,” when did committing a sin, absent criminal behavior, bar someone from being extended their legal rights? As the rabbi and teacher Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Cantor Michal Gray-Schaffer is the spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Abraham in downtown Butler.