Court permits Israeli gay couple to adopt son

Doctors in Israel. File photo.

A Tel Aviv family court has ruled that a gay couple can adopt the son they took in 14 years ago.

Uzi Even and Amit Kama, who married in 1994 in Canada, are the first same-sex male couple in the country whose right of adoption has been legally acknowledged.

Their son, Yossi Even-Kama, 30, moved in with them at the age of 16, after his family could not accept he was gay.

The couple began the formal adoption process because Tel Aviv University refused to grant Even-Kama a tuition discount reserved for families of faculty members. Even is a chemistry professor at the university.

“Our struggles are political but also very real,” said Kama, an expert in communication theory. “I began my first struggle when I felt I was paying fines I didn’t deserve, and in Yossi’s case we’re talking about tens of thousands of shekels.”

“But the true meaning of this is that the state and its authorities recognize us as a family,” he said. “This legitimises our daily lives, our feelings, our emotions.”

Dori Spivak, the deputy director of the law clinic programs at Tel Aviv University, who helped Even and Kama in their cause, said it was “the first case ever where the right of adoption was acknowledged not only for two women, but also for two men.”

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