GUADALAJARA – President Shimon Peres expressed unequivocal
support for same-sex marriage during a state visit to Mexico.
In an interview with Ynet on Sunday while in Mexico's
Guadalajara, Peres said that "even a person who is a homosexual is a human
being, and he has rights. We have no power to take away (their) rights."
Peres added: "We cannot take away someone's rights
because they are different. We cannot take away their right to breathe, right
to eat or right to start a family. We must allow everyone to live as is natural
to them."
Peres' comments came in response to a new bill being
promoted by the Justice Ministry called 'Living together' which attempts to
regulate some form of a civil partnership between same-sex couples.
The government
is not scheduled to vote on the bill any time soon, but a memorandum signed by
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni in its favor is being circled around.
Towards equality
On Sunday morning the Ministerial Committee on Legislative
Affairs authorized a new bill which attempts to mend the Income Tax Act and
grant same-sex couples with children the same tax exemptions enjoyed by their
heterosexual counterparts.
"We are talking about tens of thousands of shekels
given to the parents of children under 18, sums which were prevented from
same-sex parents," said MK Adi Kol (Yesh Atid) who proposed the bill.
An additional bill, being promoted by MK Stav Shaffir
(Labor) and which attempt to secure equal marriage rights to same-sex couples,
failed to make it through the committee a few weeks ago.
Yesh Atid filed a
party-supported initiative to regulate same-sex as well as civil (as opposed to
religiously ordained) marriage in Israel. The gist of the bill was an attempt
to form a civilian version of the rabbinate which would offer state-sanctioned
civilian marriage services.
The bill is expected to be voted on in the committee and –
if it should pass – could move onto the Knesset for an additional round of
votes.
However, it is safe to assume that even within the coalition there will
be those opposed to the proposal – namely the Habayit Hayehudi who view the
idea as an attempt to circumnavigate the rabbinate.
As the Knesset's summer plenum began, Finance Minister Yair
Lapid reiterated his commitment to the fight for same-sex marriage.
In reality,
there are little to no differences between Livni's and Lapid's bill, and now it
is only a fight over who will take the credit for the move. It remains unclear
whether the two are considering merging their respective proposals.
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