Rabbi: Law against High Court needed
Former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu slams High Court ruling on same-sex couples, urges religious MKs to seek cancellation of ruing in Knesset
Former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu called "all the parties to unite and to make a law against this thing, against the High Court."
This is the first significant public opposition by a religious public figure against the High Court ruling that allows same-sex marriages to be registered in the population registry.
Contrary to the widespread ultra-Orthodox protest against the gay pride parade, the High Court ruling passed with surprising silence last week. None of the prominent rabbis in the haredi or religious sector came out with a public statement against the ruling, except the former chief rabbi.
He claimed that a union of the parties is required to cancel the ruling. The rabbi made these statements in his weekly haredi radio program Kol Ha'emet during which he responds to listeners' questions.
In the rest of his answer, Rabbi Eliyahu claimed that "all the parties, all of them without exception – haredi or not haredi, religious or not religious, and even members of Knesset from other parties who are in Kadima or some other place where there are few religious people among them – need to unite and to unite and make a law against this thing, against the High Court."
He even expanded his response to include adopting a whole new attitude toward the High Court and its other rulings. "Anything that damages religion, make a law against it," he stipulated.
The rabbi explained that there is an obligation to protest such rulings because "if they don't do this thing, if they aren't erased below, they will be angry at us above. But if below it is erased, it is pardoned in heaven."
Cancelation ahead?
The interviewer sharpened the question: "So, everyone has the duty to protest, including leader?"
Eliyahu replied decisively: "Yes. All MKs will submit requests in the Knesset to cancel what the High Court's ruling. If it doesn't work, so no, but at least they protested. It is forbidden , they won't remain quiet. There are some religious people in the Knesset, how can this be?" Said the rabbi.
Sources in Shas, the government's coalition partner, told Ynet about the questions raised by the rabbi: "Shas want to remind rabbi Eliyahu that the previous government which caused destruction on the social and security levels, was also responsible for the destruction of Jewish traditions through various ways in order to define marriage as civil marriage, and all this with a religious coalition partner that is led by rabbi Eliyahu, and which included the Shinui party."
"The public's memory in this country is a little longer than what rabbi Eliyahu thinks," Shas said, in an allusion to the National Religious Party, a coalition partner in the previous government.
