In a victory for LGBTI rights in the Middle East, Israel’s top court has officially ruled in favour of two gay dads, who both requested to be officially named as the parents on their adopted child’s birth certificate.
Following on from a dispute with Israel’s Interior Ministry, after officials refused to include both of Dads names on the certificate because they are of the same sex, The High Court of Justice ordered the Ministry to list the names of the two men as the legal parents of the boy on his birth certificate.
“It is unreasonable for the couple to be legally recognised as parents but for the certificate not to give expression to that fact,” wrote Justice Neal Hendel in the unanimous court ruling.
According to reports from the Israeli news outlet, Haaretz, the three judges found that the case concerned both the parents’ rights and the rights of the child.
“The principle of the child’s welfare supports registering his full family unit and doesn’t permit making do with registering one of the parents on the birth certificate while excluding the other and undermining his right to parenthood, given the contrast in the treatment of a child adopted by a heterosexual couple, who is entitled to have both his adoptive parents registered on the birth certificate – a contrast that affects both the child and the parents,” Justice Hendel explained.
LGBTI rights group The Aguda, who helped file the case along with the couple, described the court’s ruling a “victory” for LGBTI families.
“This is a historic decision that affects all state agencies and the courts,” The Aguda told their followers on its Facebook page.
“The decision pulls the rug out from under the various arguments by the state with regard to LGBT parenting. The time has come to stop the unacceptable discrimination against us. We will continue to fight in the streets, the courts and the Knesset (Parliament) until we are no longer second-class citizens.”
The courts ruling is now expected to impact two other pending cases before the court, that involves a lesbian couple, one of whom gave birth to a child, also seeking to have both their names on the birth certificate, and another that concerns a transgender man who wishes to be identified as his child’s father and not as his mother.
