Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana (Likud) voted on Wednesday against the coalition line and supported a bill proposed by MK Yorai Lahav Hertzanu (Yesh Atid) which broadens the group of people eligible to adopt a child in Israel.
This would allow unmarried couples, gay couples and single people to adopt children, rather than just heterosexual married couples.
Ohana was given the leeway to vote against the coalition in the cases of LGBTQ+ rights as part of the initial coalition agreements.
Despite this, the bill did not pass the Knesset vote.
"This is the most homophobic government in the history of the State of Israel," tweeted Hertzanu after the vote. "A few minutes ago, Likud MKs - the "national liberal" movement - voted against the LGBTQ+ community's right to adopt children and built a family in Israel. They say with contempt to each and every one of us: we are not good enough to be parents just because of our hearts' inclinations. Disgrace."
זאת הממשלה הכי להט״בופובית בתולדות מדינת ישראל. לפני מספר רגעים חברי הליכוד, התנועה ״הלאומית ליברלית״, הצביעו נגד הזכות של הקהילה הגאה לאמץ ילדים ולהקים משפחה בישראל. הם אומרים בבוז לכל אחת ואחד מאיתנו - אתם לא ראויים להיות הורים רק בגלל נטיית ליבנו. חרפה.
— Yorai Lahav Hertzanu - יוראי להב הרצנו (@YoraiLahav) February 22, 2023
Chairwoman of The Aguda - The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel Hila Pe’er told the media: "The government whose leaders declared that they would not harm the gay community, voted today aginst hundreds of thousands of people who simply want to build a family in Israel and in favor of crushing the court, which is the only institution that currently protects the LGBTQ+ community. Our ability to be parents, to have children and to adopt, is completely dependent on the High Court. When they continue the discrimination under the law and in parallel crush the one institution that can cancel it, we must fight for our lives. This Saturday night, we will all go out and fight for our rights because nobody else will do it in our place."
The long road to LGBTQ+ adoption
In 2017, the state told the High Court that because gay couples are non-normative, this can put "extra weight" on children that are adopted. This led to widespread protests after which the state admitted that the law is discriminatory against LGBTQ+ families and committed to amending it.
In March 2022, after five years with no change to the adoption laws, a petition was submitted by Israel's LGBT Task Force, the Israel Religious Action Center, Open House Jerusalem and two male couples who were pushed to the end of the "waiting list" to adopt children demanded that the government repair the discrimination against LGBTQ+ couples who cannot adopt children as the situation stood then.
Homophobia in the current Israeli government
Several leaders of the current Israeli government have been outspoken in their distaste for the LGBTQ+ community. Religious Zionism Party leader MK Bezalel Smotrich spoke out against the LGBTQ+ community in a recorded secret conversation that came to light on a KAN Reshet Bet radio show on January 16.
In a conversation with an unknown businessman that took place a few months prior, Smotrich made it clear that if he would actively take measures against the LGBTQ+ community, it would not hurt him politically and would not cost him voters.
The far-right Noam Party has also come under public scrutiny for homophobia. According to a December 2022 report by Yediot Aharonot, the party has been keeping track of LGBTQ+ people working in the Israeli media and keeping a blacklist for several years.
The report showed documents taken from the 2019 version of the anti-LGBTQ+ Noam party's online "instruction manual" - which included homophobic, anti-feminist texts and a slew of conspiracy theories.
The documents singled out LGBTQ+ members from different media outlets in order to show how the "LGBTQ+ lobby" controlled the media.
Another document singled out feminist academics whose research was used by the IDF's gender affairs advisor to the chief of staff, in order to argue that "radical feminist groups" had a toehold in the IDF's system. Another document's headline was "The Takeover of the Education System: How Liberal Organizations and Foreign Governments Control the Education Ministry."
Homophobia in the coalition agreements
The coalition agreements between the Likud and both United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and the Religious Zionist Party (RZP) include a clause that would enable discrimination in private businesses based on religious belief, according to the full UTJ agreement which was published in December.
"Already two decades ago, the Likud was the one that supported the law, and now Prime Minister-designate Netanyahu may reverse our rights," Hilah Pe'er of Israel's LGBT Task Force, said to KAN News when the current government was still forming. "The thought that any restaurant, event hall or private clinic would be allowed to discriminate against us because of our identity is a great shame and danger. We will do everything so that this plan is not realized.'
Walla!, Eliav Breuer and Maariv Online contributed to this report.