Yad Hashmona Loses Same-Sex Lawsuit

By | September 14, 2012

From ICEJ News:

Yad Hashmona, the Messianic Jewish Moshav near Jerusalem, was handed a devastating legal defeat on Wednesday when the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ruled that it had acted improperly in refusing to allow a lesbian couple to have a wedding reception in the Moshav events hall and ordered the Moshav to pay damages to the couple amounting to NIS 60,000, as well as legal fees. The judge explained in his ruling that it would "teach the public a lesson about the value of equality and tolerance." The lesbian couple, Tal Ya’akovovich and Yael Biran, underwent a civil wedding ceremony in the UK in 2008 and contracted to hold a party at Yad Hashmona without informing the management that it was a same-sex event. When the management realized this, they cancelled the reservation and the couple help their party at the nearby Kibbutz Tzuba instead. However, attorney Ira Hadar declared that her clients had suffered discrimination and humiliation based on sexual orientation, and the court agreed. In the two days since the verdict, Yad Hashmona has been bombarded with calls from same-sex couples demanding to have events at the reception hall.

It will not always be this way, but it will probably get worse before the nation repents.

3 thoughts on “Yad Hashmona Loses Same-Sex Lawsuit

  1. Khoi To

    Sign of the times. I agree with your assessment. It’s happening here in the US Army.

    Reply
  2. Ilena Madraso

    So sad! I’m surprise with the reasoning for the judge’s decision: it would “teach the public a lesson about the value of equality and tolerance.” In the US that would be (or was) considered “judicial activism,” and is (was) not upheld by higher courts. But, I don’t know the lay of the law in Isreal.

    Reply

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