Israel’s High Court Slams State’s Behavior in Two Gay Parenthood Cases

The High Court of Justice issued two instructions to the state on Wednesday in two separate cases involving the rights of same-sex parents. In one, the court ordered the state to show cause for refusing to register both members of a same-sex couple as parents of an adopted child on the child’s birth certificate. In the other, the state was instructed to inform the court within a month whether it would to ease restrictions on lesbian couples to allow both women to appear as mother on the birth certificate of a child.

To really understand Israel and the Middle East - subscribe to Haaretz

In the adoption case, the court called the state’s position unreasonable and said that if the state did not respond satisfactorily in 30 days, it would order the policy changed. The High Court ruling comes after earlier this week Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit informed the court that he supports the registration of same-sex adoptive parents in a child’s birth certificate, a position Interior Minister Arye Dery opposes.

In the case of lesbian couples, the High Court criticized a demand by the Interior Ministry that lesbian couples only be both declared mothers by a judicial process. In response to the petition brought by Orly and Ravit Weiselberg-Zur, the justices said a declaration to the Interior Ministry should be sufficient in most cases.

>> Israel's LGBT strike of the pampered || Opinion >>

• Israel’s LGBT Protest Is the Start of Nothing
• LGBT Groups to March From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem Ahead of Pride Parade
• LGBT Protest May Herald a Turning Point in Israel's History

The attorney for the state, Nahi Ben-Or, told the court the state was unwilling to take “shortcuts” in registration of parenthood.

In the case of the petition seeking to register both adoptive parents in a gay household as a child’s parents, Justice Neal Hendel asked why the state would issue a “parenthood order” for a gay adoptive couple, but would not register both adoptive parents on their child’s birth certificate, The attorney for the state responded that on a birth certificate there is little room for exceptional cases – and the state considers parenthood by surrogacy or adoption as exceptional.