Israel recognizes same-sex unions

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-12-10 12:30pm

Israel's attorney general has granted legal recognition to same-sex couples in financial and other business matters, his office said Wednesday, prompting an outcry from some ultra-Orthodox Jews, who consider the decision sacrilegious. Atty. Gen. Meni Mazuz said the couples will be treated the same as common-law spouses, recognizing them as legal units for tax, real estate, and financial purposes.

Mazuz made his decision by refusing to appeal a district court ruling in an inheritance case that recognized the legality of a same-sex union, his office said in a statement. Mazuz did differentiate, however, between recognizing same-sex unions for financial and practical purposes, as he did, and changing the law to officially sanction the unions, which would be a matter for parliament, according to the statement.

Gay rights activists cheered the decision. "This is very dramatic," said Irit Rosenblum, director of the New Family Organization, which advocates legal recognition of gay partners. "Practically, this is a declaration recognizing the family with same-sex parents. People won't sweep this under the table anymore and say it doesn't exist."

David Batzri, a prominent rabbi, lashed out at the ruling, saying it endorsed homosexuality and will bring God's vengeance and possibly even another great flood upon Israel. "There were such laws in Sodom," his son, Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri, told Army Radio. "The Torah, our book of laws, says that such things are sacrilegious," he said. "To make this permissible and positive...is very grave. Instead we need to help these people to come out of this."

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-12-10 12:40pm

what an idiot. Gid promised to never flood the earth again

If a JEWISH STATE can recognize same sex unions, wy cant a secular nation? Help me understand....

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2004-12-10 12:45pm

Alyrium Denryle wrote:If a JEWISH STATE can recognize same sex unions, wy cant a secular nation? Help me understand....

Ah, but the powers that be do not consider the US to be secular. The Constitution is a divinely inspired document, you know.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-12-10 01:04pm

Holy shit, and to think non of the news were reporting this.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2004-12-10 02:04pm

isreal is the chosen people of god. they would never do anything ungodly like this.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2004-12-10 02:07pm

Alyrium Denryle wrote:what an idiot. Gid promised to never flood the earth again

If a JEWISH STATE can recognize same sex unions, wy cant a secular nation? Help me understand....

"It's a mystery. Broken into a jigsaw puzzle. Wrapped in a conundrum. Hidden in a Chinese box."

-- The Riddler, Batman: The Long Halloween --

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-12-10 02:18pm

Clearly it's a sign of the Apocalypse.

But seriously now... ISRAEL? This just makes the US look so bad...

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-12-10 03:14pm

According to Falwell such an action will cost Israel God's protection, resulting in a terrorist attack of some sort.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2004-12-10 03:16pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:According to Falwell such an action will cost Israel God's protection, resulting in a terrorist attack of some sort.

Yeah but so many terrorists are attacking Israel who'd notice?

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-12-10 03:21pm

Lord Pounder wrote:Yeah but so many terrorists are attacking Israel who'd notice?

Perhaps Israel's been unusualy naughty.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-12-10 03:31pm

Alyrium Denryle wrote:what an idiot. Gid promised to never flood the earth again

If a JEWISH STATE can recognize same sex unions, wy cant a secular nation? Help me understand....

The USA is not a secular state. It used to be, but it's now firmly in the grip of the Fundies for at least the next four years.

I hope come 2008-2012 there'll be a backlash from HELL.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-12-10 03:47pm

With all the terrorist bombings happening in Israel already, I doubt they're going to notice if God visits his wrath on them.

EDIT: I know it wouldn't ever happen, but wouldn't the irony be delicious if Bush withdrew the Israeli defense fund on account of their recognizing gay marriage?

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-12-10 03:54pm

Durandal wrote:With all the terrorist bombings happening in Israel already, I doubt they're going to notice if God visits his wrath on them.

EDIT: I know it wouldn't ever happen, but wouldn't the irony be delicious if Bush withdrew the Israeli defense fund on account of their recognizing gay marriage?

Who knows, maybe they will. Then the world will know where Bush truly stands..

In fact, I think we shall play Israel's recent flash of Enlightenment up to the hilt!

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-12-10 04:29pm

Considering how conservative Israel is, I'm suprised by this.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2004-12-10 05:17pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:Considering how conservative Israel is, I'm suprised by this.

Israel is not all that conservative. You have to remember that it was founded as a socialist state by largely secular Zionist organizations. Conservative groups have come to exert enormous pressure on the government, but that hasn't changed the significant portion of the population which is quite liberal by our standards and remembers their heritage well.

One of the most bizarre events of the Cold War, in my opinion, was that we ended up allied with Israel and not the USSR.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-12-10 05:33pm

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: Israel is not all that conservative. You have to remember that it was founded as a socialist state by largely secular Zionist organizations. Conservative groups have come to exert enormous pressure on the government, but that hasn't changed the significant portion of the population which is quite liberal by our standards and remembers their heritage well.

One of the most bizarre events of the Cold War, in my opinion, was that we ended up allied with Israel and not the USSR.

Like hell they aren't socially conservative. Have you ever heard an orthodox Jew weigh in on a social issue like Gay Marriage? You hit the nail on the head, the conservative groups do exert enormous amounts of pressure on the government. When it comes to passing laws, what difference does it make what a significant portion of the population is liberal (and I'm taking your word on that), if the government is conservative?

Besides, have you listened to some of the whackos that come out of there? We think we've got fundies here, but Israeli fundamentalists are hardcore, like what happens if you take a Jerry Falwell, give him the super serum Religiohol, and then give him automatic weapons and a desire to shoot his way to G-d when the Rapture happens. If Israel is such a liberal society, how do those people even exist?

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2004-12-10 05:48pm

Gil Hamilton wrote: Like hell they aren't socially conservative. Have you ever heard an orthodox Jew weigh in on a social issue like Gay Marriage? You hit the nail on the head, the conservative groups do exert enormous amounts of pressure on the government. When it comes to passing laws, what difference does it make what a significant portion of the population is liberal (and I'm taking your word on that), if the government is conservative?

Because governments in Israel rely on coalitions. Look--Likud, right now, is trying to ally with Labour to pull off Sharon's evacuation plans. Obviously they are willing and capable of compromise and obviously

Besides, have you listened to some of the whackos that come out of there? We think we've got fundies here, but Israeli fundamentalists are hardcore, like what happens if you take a Jerry Falwell, give him the super serum Religiohol, and then give him automatic weapons and a desire to shoot his way to G-d when the Rapture happens.

Some people like that do come out of Israel, but you have to remember that the Jewish attitude toward religion is that if you were born a Jew you are a Jew; though that makes them much more intolerant of other religions and peoples, it also makes them very tolerant of Jews who do not follow their version of Judaism. They're still Jews, since they were born Jews. So Israeli society doesn't have the same sort of tensions from fundamentalism that our's does.

If Israel is such a liberal society, how do those people even exist?

Because they usually isolate themselves in small farming communities.

Don't take it from me, read this:

What we learn from this and other studies is that Israel's Jews are not divided into two groups but into four: in Israeli terms, ultra-Orthodox (haredim), religious Zionists (datiim), traditional Jews (masortiim), and secular (hilonim). The ultra-Orthodox, those strangely (to Western eyes) garbed, black hatted Jews who are featured in all the pictures, represent only 8 percent of Israel's Jewish population. Another 17 percent are religious Zionists who normally are lost to view in many of the studies and the statistics because they are generally lumped with everyone else. The religious Zionists are similar to the modern or centrist Orthodox Jews in the diaspora, partaking of most or all aspects of modern civilization except that they maintain Orthodox observance of Jewish religious law and tradition.

The third group consists of the vast majority of Israeli Jews, some 55 percent, who define themselves as "traditional." These Jews are from many backgrounds but most are Sephardim from the Mediterranean or Islamic worlds. They are people who value traditional Jewish life but who are prepared to modify halakhically-required Jewish practices in those cases where they believe it to be personally necessary or attractive to do so. They cover the whole range of belief and observance from people of fundamentalist belief and looser practice to people who have interpreted Judaism in the most modern manner but retain many of its customs and ceremonies, particularly those connected with home and family.

From this link

And easily 1/5th of the population considers itself secular--ironically including many Likud supporters. The recent Russian Jewish immigrants are generally very secular or outright atheists; they just support Likud for reasons which can be summed up to "Russian bloody-mindedness", though I could give a longer explanation if you wanted it.

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2004-12-10 06:14pm

Like hell they aren't socially conservative. Have you ever heard an orthodox Jew weigh in on a social issue like Gay Marriage? You hit the nail on the head, the conservative groups do exert enormous amounts of pressure on the government. When it comes to passing laws, what difference does it make what a significant portion of the population is liberal (and I'm taking your word on that), if the government is conservative?

Because it depends on who holds the balance of power in the Knesset. For a long time Shas, the largest religious party, got to play kingmaker. Their demands to join the government were largely religious, and frankly were far cheaper to buy off than many other parties.

As it stands the top two parties are Likud and Labour, both of which will get into bed with the secularists or the fundies if the price is right. Number three is Shinui, whose platform is essentially anti-fundism. Shas weighs in at fourth. Up until the last election Shas was number three; it was normally far cheaper to bribe them than to compromise for a national unity government (Labour and Likud) or to buy off the hard right or hard left.

The religious parties only get to pass laws when the other parties can't cut a deal. Germany has the greens, Israel has Shas.

Besides, have you listened to some of the whackos that come out of there? We think we've got fundies here, but Israeli fundamentalists are hardcore, like what happens if you take a Jerry Falwell, give him the super serum Religiohol, and then give him automatic weapons and a desire to shoot his way to G-d when the Rapture happens. If Israel is such a liberal society, how do those people even exist?

By not being part of society. Kahane Chai, the largest group of the shoot the Muslims group, is an outright terrorist group and is treated as such by the government. Those sympathetic tend to live in isolated communities.

You have to remember that it was founded as a socialist state by largely secular Zionist organizations. Conservative groups have come to exert enormous pressure on the government, but that hasn't changed the significant portion of the population which is quite liberal by our standards and remembers their heritage well.

Israel is very hawkish and very socialist. The first wave of immigrants were secular socialists. The second was a fairly broad cross section of European Jewry. The third followed WWII, and after seeing Hitler they were hawkish. After that you had the ancient diasporan Jews (some times referred to as Sephardic) who are socially conservative; like the Arab states which they fled. All told the average Israeli is more liberal the average American, but the diasporan Jews vote reliably in a bloc. Further their party is easily bought off and more often than not they play kingmaker.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2004-12-10 07:10pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:Considering how conservative Israel is, I'm suprised by this.

It only makes sense, since Jews control the liberal media.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-12-10 07:20pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:But seriously now... ISRAEL? This just makes the US look so bad...

I'd say it makes Europe (except Spain and the Netherlands, of course) look even worse: after all, Western Europe is supposed to be the world's great beacon of secularism...

Justforfun000 · Post by **Justforfun000** » 2004-12-10 07:59pm

I wonder if the irony is lost on the whole Christian world. Here is the "Biblical chosen people" who are the progenitor to their religion, in fact STILL considered to be a facet of it as the Old Testament, and they woke up faster as a whole.

Maybe it just takes a few more centuries before things moderate on the Christian side too.

Yeah. Sure.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2004-12-10 09:11pm

Alyrium Denryle wrote:what an idiot. Gid promised to never flood the earth again

The fundies at this website would find your lack of faith in the authenticity of the flood disturbing...

Linky