The ruling by a seven-judge panel, though limited in scope, reignited a debate
over the rights of homosexuals in Israel after ultra-Orthodox religious leaders
led protests that resulted in the cancellation of a gay pride parade this month
in Jerusalem.
The 6-1 decision was praised by rights advocates as a political advance for
gays and lesbians, who have won previous court decisions granting them broader
rights in survivor benefits and inheritance. It also was cheered by those who
support legalizing civil marriages in Israel, where only religious ceremonies
are allowed.
"I am glad we won and got what we wanted to achieve in this petition, which was
the basic right to be registered as married by the Israeli Ministry of
Interior, just as any couple marrying abroad does and takes it for granted,"
Joseph Bar Lev, a 39-year-old dance instructor who was one of the petitioners,
told Israel Radio.
"At the same time, this is still the beginning of the road, because the real
aspiration is that civil marriage will be possible in Israel too."
The ruling did not legalize same-sex weddings in Israel, where religious
authorities by law hold a monopoly on authorizing marriages and divorces.
"We hope that one day any couple who wants to marry in Israel, whether
homosexual or heterosexual, will be able to do it," said Yoav Loeff, spokesman
for the Assn. for Civil Rights in Israel, which represented two of the five gay
couples in the case.
The male couples had wed in Canada, but when they returned to Israel, the
Interior Ministry refused to change their marital status from single to
married.
The ministry said same-sex marriages were not legally valid in Israel and could
not be listed in the government's registry. In its ruling Tuesday, the court
ordered the government to register same-sex marriages that are legal abroad.
Activists said that being registered as married could help gay spouses assert
the right to decide about medical care for their partners and make it easier
for a spouse to gain Israeli citizenship.
Religious conservatives criticized the decision as an erosion of Israel's
status as a Jewish state and said it undermined moral teachings.
Some conservatives urged the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, to examine the
possible effect on Israeli society.
"This ruling is nothing short of idolatry," Zevulun Orlev, a Knesset member
from the National Religious Party, said on Israel's Channel 10 television.
"Only 10 days ago we read the weekly Torah portion about Sodom and Gomorrah.
How exactly does this ruling reconcile with Israel being a Jewish state? What
culture considers people of the same sex to be a family? Not the Jewish one."
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish religious leaders, joined by some Muslim and Christian
clerics, protested the gay pride parade as an affront to Jerusalem's sacred
standing. For days, protesters rioted, set fires in the streets and vowed to
block the gathering.
In the end, parade organizers agreed to hold their rally in a stadium after
police expressed concern about their ability to protect marchers. The event
proceeded peacefully with a large police presence.
Secular Israelis have long complained about the broad authority wielded by the
country's leading Orthodox rabbis. Many couples travel overseas to marry in
civil ceremonies, a practice that has spawned a matrimonial cottage industry in
the nearby island nation of Cyprus.
The issue of civil marriage is important among emigres from the former Soviet
Union, many of whom are not Jewish or can't prove their heritage to the
satisfaction of rabbinical authorities in Israel. Several candidates in
national elections last spring promised Russian voters that they would try to
make it easier for them to marry in Israel, though no reforms have been passed.
The lawyers in the same-sex marriage case cited as a precedent a Supreme Court
decision from the 1960s that ordered the government to register civil marriages
performed abroad, Loeff said.
Religious liberals said the ruling could help them cut into the clout held by
rabbinical leaders in matters of marriage and divorce, as well as in
conversions to Judaism.
Members of conservative and reform strains of Judaism have sought for years to
have non-Orthodox conversions recognized by Israel's top rabbis.
Although the groups have made inroads in getting official recognition for
non-Orthodox conversions done abroad, they are awaiting a court ruling on
similar recognition for conversions carried out in Israel.
"The Supreme Court of Israel is the grand hope all liberal Jews have" to check
the power of the Orthodox leaders, said Anat Hoffman, a former member of the
Jerusalem City Council who directs the Israel Religious Action Center, which
advocates religious pluralism in Israel.
Hoffman campaigned in support of the gay pride parade, and said she was
appalled by the tone of the protests by religious leaders from all three major
faiths.
She said the court's ruling simply recognized the legality of same-sex
marriages granted by countries that allowed them.
"If the Canadians recognize these people as a family," Hoffman said, "we can't
turn around and say that Israel, as a member of the family of nations, does
not."
