イスラエル最高裁、政府に「同性婚登録」の受け入れ命令

イスラエル最高裁、政府に「同性婚登録」の受け入れ命令
2006.11.22
Web posted at: 18:09 JST
- AP

エルサレム（ＡＰ）　イスラエル最高裁は２１日、政府に対して、国外で婚姻関係を結んだ同性カップルの結婚を、イスラエル国内でも登録を認めるよう命じる判断を下した。同性愛カップルがこの判断を喜ぶ一方、同性愛を認めないユダヤ教など各宗教信者は、非難の声を上げている。

この判断により、カナダなど同性婚を認めている国々で結婚したカップルの婚姻関係が、イスラエル国内でも正式に認められることになる。

司法関係者によると、イスラエル国内ではすでに、異性カップルと同様の権利が、同性カップルにも多く認められていたという。しかし、今回の最高裁による判断で、税制上の権利が認められたほか、養子を迎えることが可能になったという。

最高裁は、同性カップルの結婚を認める命令を政府に出したが、同性愛を認めない信者の心情を考慮し、結婚の「承認」ではなく「登録」の言い回しで、婚姻関係を認めるよう指示を出した。

しかし、宗教関係者の反発は大きく、ユダヤ原理主義者の議員が、同性婚を認めることは違反だとして、訴えを起こすとしている。

「同性愛」は、対立が絶えないユダヤ教、イスラム教、キリスト教の各信徒が、共通して反対するテーマ。イスラエル国内で実施されるゲイ・パレードなどでは、各宗教の信徒が一緒になって、非難行動を起こしている。


Israel orders gay marriage recognition
By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Nov 21, 10:37 AM ET

In a landmark ruling, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government Tuesday to recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad.

The lone dissenter on the seven-judge panel was an observant Jew, highlighting the controversy the decision immediately touched off among ultra-Orthodox Jews and other conservative groups in Israel.

Efforts by Israel's gay community to win approval for same-sex marriage, a key issue in the U.S. and Europe, face a major obstacle because Israel's religious authorities have a monopoly over marriage and divorce.

Yossi Ben-Ari and Laurent Schuman were married in Canada after that country legalized same-sex marriage in 2003. Determined after a 21-year partnership to enjoy all the privileges of a married couple in Israel, they were among five couples who petitioned the Supreme Court to have their marriage registered here, too.

"We're delighted, but the struggle is not over," Ben-Ari said.

Moshe Negbi, a legal expert, said the court's decision is mostly symbolic because gay couples in Israel already had many of the rights of heterosexual partnerships. The significant changes are that they will now get the same tax breaks as a married couple and be able to adopt children, Negbi said.

Israeli law stipulates a couple must be married to adopt a child.

"The marriages of same-sex couples who marry in places like Canada where the law recognizes such marriages, will also be recognized in Israel, and they will be registered as married here," Negbi said.

Civil marriages cannot be performed in Israel because of the rabbinate's monopoly on family law. But couples married in civil ceremonies abroad have all the rights of a married couple, and their marriages are registered here. The court uses the term "register" instead of "recognition" to avoid religious criticism of the ruling, Negbi said.

"The court says that now, not only heterosexuals, but homosexuals, too, can have civil marriages," Negbi added.

The word game did not pacify the ultra-Orthodox community, which was infuriated by the ruling.

"We don't have a Jewish state here. We have Sodom and Gomorrah here," said Moshe Gafni, an ultra-Orthodox lawmaker.

"I assume that every sane person in the state of Israel, possibly the entire Jewish world, is shocked, because the significance is ... the destruction of the family unit in the state of Israel," Gafni told Israel's Army Radio.

Gafni said he would consider presenting a bill to parliament that would bypass Tuesday's ruling and make recognition of all same-sex marriages illegal.

Animosity toward gays and lesbians is one of the few issues that unites Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land. They have jointly come out against gay parades in the city, and are all likely to oppose the Supreme Court ruling.

Earlier this month, a planned gay parade in Jerusalem set off days of violence in the city's ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. Protesters burned trash bins and hurled stones at police, demanding the parade be canceled or moved to secular Tel Aviv.

In the end, Jerusalem's gay community moved the event to a stadium on a university campus in Jerusalem, quelling the threats of violence and allowing 4,000 people to celebrate peacefully.

Last year, an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed and wounded three participants at Jerusalem's gay parade.

Still, many cities in Israel have thriving gay scenes. And the Israeli military, an influential and respected institution, is banned from discriminating against gays. Homosexuals are drafted into the army for mandatory service and are given the opportunity to progress up the ranks.

Court says Israel must register same-sex marriages
The ruling, which affects those wed abroad, reignites a debate over gay rights.
By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 22, 2006

JERUSALEM — The Israeli Supreme Court touched off a fresh controversy over gay rights Tuesday when it ordered the government to register same-sex marriages performed abroad.

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."

ellingwood@latimes.com