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Knesset against civil marriage
Photo: Index Open
MK Rotem
Photo: Gil Yohanan
MK Sharoni
Photo: Gil Yohanan

Knesset votes against civil marriage

Bill granting all married couples' rights to couples wed in Israel without a rabbi rejected by vast majority of MKs. Bill's initiators, Yisrael Beiteinu MK David Rotem: Labor, Kadima and Likud spat in the face of the freedom-seeking public

The Knesset on Wednesday rejected two bills calling for the recognition of couples not wed by an Orthodox rabbi.

 

The bills were submitted by Knesset Members David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu) and Moshe Sharoni (Pensioners Party). Fifty-nine MKs voted against Rotem's bull while 20 opposed it, and 48 voted against MK Sharoni's similar proposal while only 19 supported it.

 

MK Sharoni told Ynet after his bill was rejected, "This is a testimonium paupertatis to my fellow faction members who did not support the bill. We discussed the bill at a faction meeting on Monday. They said they would support the bill and they didn't.

 

"They wet themselves. It's embarrassing. How is it possible that on Monday they tell me to submit the bill and on Wednesday they fail to support it?"

 

MK Rotem said Wednesday that the reason some of the Likud MKs failed to support his bill was surrendering to Shas in a bid to form the next coalition. He also slammed the Labor and Kadima members who did not support the bill.

 

According to MK Rotem, "Their vote will be remembered as a spit in the face of the new immigrants and the freedom-seeking public in the country. The public will remember this on Election Days."

 

Meretz MKs explained that they did not support the law as it failed to provide a solution for same-sex couples.

 

Attorney Gilad Kariv of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) said in response that "the Israeli Knesset and government continue to abandon hundreds of thousands of citizens who cannot get married in Israel, while surrendering in a disrespectable manner to the Orthodox monopoly and its emissaries in the Knesset.

 

"The lawmakers' indifference will not prevent thousands of young couples from voting against this predatory monopoly, and marry overseas in foreign countries, until its fortified and corrupt walls will collapse on their own."

 


פרסום ראשון: 02.13.08, 17:57
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