Israel MP performs gay marriages as protest

To protest claims same-sex marriage will destroy the Jewish people

Following a statement by a religious right-wing electoral candidate that gay marriages will destroy the Jewish people, Meretz, a left wing Israeli party, performed mock gay marriages outside Tel-Aviv’s rabbinical court.

The protests were led by out gay Israeli MP Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) who also conducted several mock ‘gay marriages’, some of them marrying straight supporters of equality to their same-sex friends.

The anti-gay statements were condemned across the Israeli political spectrum, ahead of Israel’s general election next month.

Earlier this week prominent politician and candiate Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan, of The Jewish Home Party told Walla News he objected to gay marriage.

Dahan who is also a former director of the Israeli Rabbinical court system said:

‘Every sociology professor will tell you that the foundation of every nation is the family unit.

‘If we legitimize a unit that creates a reality that has no continuity, for a personal momentary self-gratification, without foresight and without producing a new generation -aims at a destruction of a race.

‘The Jewish people would be destroyed.

‘Should we give a legal recognition to a reality which does not produce a new generation without seeing the future and a generational continuity?’

Dahan’s statement were endorsed by The Jewish Home party’s leader Naftali Bennett, who reiterated yesterday his recent statement that he objects to same-sex marriage.

Israel currently recognizes same-sex marriages performed outside the country and same-sex cohabitation and adoption, but does not allow same-sex or civil marriage for heterosexuals where one partner is a different religion to the other – meaning that thousands of Israeli couples must travel abroad to get married each year.

During the Tel-Aviv protest against Dahan’s anti-gay rant, Horowtiz said:

‘Because there are no civil unions in Israel, no same-sex marriage and no freedom of choice in marriage, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens are deprived of this basic right.’

‘They must fly abroad, spend thousands of dollars, become entangled with legal issues, are harassed by the clerks … and after all that there are those who still have the nerve to say we are destroying the Jewish people — like some members of a certain right-wing party.’

‘The ones who are distancing us from Judaism are those same people who express themselves in such a manner, people who spread hate and meanness.’

Horowitz put forward a bill in May which would have allowed interfaith and same-sex marriages in Israel but it was rejected by the government. 

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SEE Video by Yair Hochner of the protest ON GAYSTAR NEWS. READ MORE
Photo by Yair Hochner