Israel’s high court slams state’s treatment of same-sex parents
Israel’s high court has sided with two different cases involving the rights of same-sex parents, ordering the state to carry out a series of instructions.
In the first case, the court has instructed the state to show cause – meaning showing satisfactory grounds – for refusing to register a same-sex couple as parents of an adopted child on the infant’s birth certificate, reports Haaretz.
In the other case, following a petition by Orly and Ravit Weiselberg-Zur to register same-sex adoptive parents as the child’s parents, the high court criticised the interior ministry’s demand that lesbian couples could only be declared as mothers after a judicial process.
In response to the petition, justice Neal Hendel questioned why the state issued a “parenthood order” for a same-sex adoptive couple, but refused to register them as mothers on the child’s birth certificate.
The court ordered the state to inform it within a month as to whether it would ease restrictions and allow women in same-sex relationships to both appear as the mother on the child’s birth certificate.
Posting on Facebook following the ruling, Orly Weiselberg-Zur said: “It’s not a verdict yet, it’s a call to the state to pull together and fix her twisted ways.
“We hope that you will use this amazing opportunity to stand behind your equality for equality.”
There are on-going protests in Israel against the country’s new surrogacy law.
The law, passed last week, extends surrogacy rights to women who cannot naturally conceive.
However, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocked an amendment by a member of centre-right political Likud, which would have extended the same right to gay couples and single men.
Protest against PM Benjamin Netanyahu. (The Aguda – The Israeli National LGBT Task Force)
Earlier this month, aLGBT+ activist s posted a video that shows a car being driven into him in Beer-Sheva, Israel, in what he has described as an act of “homophobia.”
Or Erez, a spokesperson for the Tel Aviv Municipal LGBT Community Center, said he had been taking part in a protest against LGBT+ exclusion from the country’s new surrogacy law, reports Ynetnews.
According to the Jerusalem Post, protesters recently gathered outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem, chanting slogans accusing him of being a homophobe.
Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, protesters shut down the Ayalon Highway – one of the main thoroughfares in the city.
