Following historic US decision, Israeli LGBT association hopes to win a similar legal battle and bypass the religious establishment.
The Israeli GLBT Association submitted a petition to the Supreme Court this weekend demanding that the state allow gay marriage in Israel.
While same-sex Israelis couples who wed abroad can be legally recognized as being married in Israel, the state does not allow them to get married in their home country.
The US Supreme Court ruling this year that made same-sex marriages the law of the land inspired Hen Arieli and Imri Kalman, leaders in the association, who told Ynet what led them to submit the petition.
“When a Cohen (a person whose ancestors were allegedly members of Judaism’s priestly class) and a divorcee arrive at the rabbinate and want to get married, the rabbinate says, ‘we do not have the authority to judge this case’ because it doesn’t want to marry them for halachic (Jewish religious law) reasons,” they said.
“In that case the religious court essentially rules that the legal court will marry them. Based on exactly the same reasoning, we want to approach the rabbinate as Jewish same-sex couples, ask the rabbinate ‘please, marry us’ and it will reply that it does not have the authority and therefore we will demand that they treat us exactly the same and not discriminate.”
The pair said the mere fact that the court didn’t reject the petition straight away was encouraging in itself.
Regarding the need for official recognition of same-sex marriages, they said it wasn’t a question of a certificate or specific rights – “it’s a matter of hierarchy and discrimination, the fact that there are people who get particular rights and others who don’t. The right to a family is one of the most historic; it’s something that human beings have done throughout history. They wanted to marry each other, before God or before the state, or before an authority that says, we recognize your relationship. That’s what we are asking of the state – find a solution.”
As reported by Ynetnews