Israeli attorney general rules gay couples can jointly adopt
The attorney general of Israel ruled on Sunday that gay couples will be allowed to jointly adopt children that are not biologically linked to either partner. Menachem Mazuz ruled that there was no legal basis for differing treatment of gay couples to straight couples.
His ruling means that gay couples will be entitled to the same rights as adopted parents as straight couples.
“It was decided there is no legal hindrance from approving same-sex couples, or one of the partners, to adopt an unrelated child who is not the child of either partner,” the justice ministry said in a statement.
But former deputy welfare minitster Avraham Ravitz told Haretz that the government’s decision is “hallucinatory.”
“The attorney-general completely missed the point.
“This is not an ideological question of whether or not a same-sex couple should be recognised before the law. Rather, this is a question of education.
“This is a question of what is best for the orphan child.
“Two women cannot take the place of a normative mother and father. A woman cannot take the place of a father, and a child needs a father.
“In a normative family, a child has a better chance of growing up healthy.
“Don’t we want the next generation to build normative families? How will they learn to do it if they don’t have someone to learn from?”
