Israeli Supreme Court rules LGBTQ couples can adopt children
WDG is the Washington Blade’s media partner in Israel. It published a Hebrew version of this story on Thursday. BY ANITA GOULD | Six years since the state pledged to change adoption law so that discrimination against same-sex couples would be eliminated, the Israeli Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that existing law allows LGBTQ couples to adopt.
The judges issued their decision as part of a discussion of the petition that two LGBTQ couples submitted in 2021 with the Reform Center, the Aguda, Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance and the Proud Fathers Association.
The petition dealt with the adoption law that states “there is no adoption except by a man and his wife together,” thus discriminating against LGBTQ couples who can only adopt children in which heterosexual couples are not interested.
These are usually older children or children with special needs, and it is required that the term “man and his wife” in the adoption law be interpreted to include spouses of the same sex. “Six decades have passed since the box ‘man and his wife together’ was written in the adoption law,” wrote the judges in their decision, “Since then, we have learned to know that a stable and loving family unit, which can form a solid foundation for raising a healthy child, can be a family unit of a man and a woman, of a woman and a woman and of each person — provided that the best interests of the child are preserved.
