Meretz Divided Over Whether To Support Non-Gay Marriage

Whether non-same-sex marriage should actually be criminalized remains a subject of contention among Meretz members.

Tel Aviv, June 28 – Leading political figures on the Israeli Left find themselves in disagreement over the proper domestic strategy to pursue in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court’s ruling that bans on same-sex marriage violate the Constitution.

The decision last week puffed wind into the sails of same-sex marriage activists worldwide, but confronted the Meretz Party leadership with a dilemma: should the party campaign for marriage equality in Israel, or would using the world “equality” wrongly imply that non-same-sex marriages have the same legitimacy as same-sex unions?

Meretz ideologues remain fiercely divided on that question, with party stalwarts stridently questioning the left-wing bona fides of their colleagues as a result. “No one can truthfully consider himself a leftist if he does not believe that the victims of discrimination must be made superior, not merely equal, to, the rest of society,” said MK Ilan Gilon. “For the same reason that Arabs and Muslims must be given a pass every time they engage in violence or oppression, an enlightened society must either grant LGBT people privileges that the rest of the polity do not have, or remove existing rights from non-LGBT people.”

Chief among the recommendations for such a policy is the institution of marriage only for same-sex unions; whether non-same-sex marriage should be criminalized remains a subject of contention among Meretz members.

Other Meretz figures argue that while ideally the party should pursue such a policy, under current circumstances political realities dictate the acceptance of non-same-sex unions, at least on a tactical level. “Fundamentally, we all agree that non-same-sex marriage is the preferred, liberated, and proper exercise of the right to marry,” acknowledges party chairwoman Zehava Gal-On. “At the same time, the fact is that in order to gain the electoral clout necessary to mandate only male-male or female-female marriages, we have to appeal to voters who might not see eye-to-eye with us on that issue.” Gal-On cited the precedent of Meretz occasionally calling itself a Zionist party, much in the way the Labor-Hatnuah alliance calls itself the Zionist Union when the logical conclusion of both parties’ platforms involves the de facto end of Zionism.

As chairwoman, Gal-On said she would not impose her view on the party. Instead, she would call a referendum of the membership to vote on the level of directness with which Meretz should engage the issue of non-same-sex marriage. “The big question under the circumstances is whether we should even allow people currently in non-same-sex marriages to participate in this referendum,” she acknowledged. “Realpolitik dictates that in terms of the larger electorate, we must at least pretend not to hate heterosexual voters. But does that concession to political realities extend even to the conduct of this internal Meretz referendum? If we want to maintain ideological consistency as much as possible, that’s a really tough question to answer.” She declined to comment on whether non-homosexuals would be allowed to continue to have membership in Meretz going forward.