Gay rights groups: Justice Min. is setting us back 30 years
Gay rights groups on Thursday fiercely criticized Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann for bowing to pressure by religious parties in his decision to redraft inheritance laws.
The revised bill would preclude homosexual couples from inheritance laws that apply to people in common-law marriages.
The chairman of the Israeli Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Association, Mike Hamel, said that "since the beginning of his miserable term, the Justice Minister has been resolute to set Israel back 30 years."
Friedmann's new bill contradicts the recommendations of a public commission headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Jacob Turkel. The commission was appointed in 1999 to reform the 1965 inheritance law.
The minister decided to limit the proposed inheritance law to "a man and a woman who lead a family life in a joint household." The original bill, which the committee approved, however, proposed to regard all "partners who live together in a common household" as each other's legal inheritors.
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