National Religious Party Chairman says High Court decision to recognize adoptions by same-sex couples undermines foundations of Jewish state

December 10, 2007 6:26 am henrymunsonjr National Religious (Religious Zionists), Israeli Religious Right

Religious party leader: Same-sex families undermine Judaism - Haaretz, December 10, 2007

Judaism does not recognize same-sex parents and therefore, the High Court decision to recognize their adoptions undermines the foundations of a Jewish state, National Religious Party Chairman Zevulun Orlev said on Sunday.

“There is no choice but to fix the legislation to determine that a family comprises a man and a woman,” Orlev said.

The panel reopened Sunday the debate on a lesbian woman’s right to adopt her partner’s son, in response to the state’s petition against a previous court ruling in 2000.

Nicole and Ruthie Brenner-Kadish formalized the adoption in California, and then petitioned the High Court, asking it to instruct the state to recognize the adoption.

As opposed to Orlev, Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On said that “the decision is one more step toward the annulment of the institutionalized discrimination of same-sex couples. It’s about time the state recognize these couple as they do adoptions completed by couples that are not of the same sex.”

In its 2000 ruling, a three-justice panel sided with the Brenner-Kadish couple, and ordered the Population Registry to list both of them as the child’s mothers. An Interior Ministry official refused, however, saying that “biologically speaking the existence of two parents of the same gender is impossible.”

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