WASHINGTON, DC (CWNews.com) - A major rabbi group representing the liberal Reform movement of Judaism officially sanctioned clergy to perform same-sex unions on Wednesday.

    The 500 members of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) voted in a voice vote to back a resolution that would allow any rabbi to preside at a same-sex union ceremony through "appropriate Jewish ritual," but would also support any rabbi that refused to participate. "These are people who are subjected to signals, subtle and not so subtle, that they are abnormal, sinful, less than whole," Rabbi Paul Menitoff, executive vice president of the CCAR, told the Washington Post newspaper. "Can you imagine the impact on them to finally hear a confirming message after so many negative messages from all those religious groups?"

    Many Reform rabbis in the US already perform same-sex unions at their synagogues, and the decision is not expected to have force wide-ranging changes. The CCAR had already approved the ordination of openly homosexual rabbis in 1990.

    The resolution approved on Wednesday stressed that the unions are not marriages and that it does not explicitly encourage rabbis to perform them.