As reported by Times of Israel, a 3-judge panel of Israel's Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice yesterday ruled that under Israel's 1981 adoption law, same-sex couples are eligible to adopt children. The court said in part:
Though the language of clause 3 [of the child adoption law, 1981] is more consistent, on its face, with the interpretation according to which the phrase of ‘a man and his wife together’ refers to heterosexual couples, an interpretation according to which this section also includes same-sex couples does not go beyond the range of possible linguistic interpretations.
This is because examining the phrase in its full linguistic context shows that the language of the section creates a distinction between two general categories: those who belong to a family framework that includes two parents, versus those who seek to adopt into a single-parent family framework. That is, the focus of the section is that it is an adoption by a stable marital framework to which the child will be given, unlike an single [parent framework].
According to Times of Israel, reporting on Acting Supreme Court President Uzi Vogelman's opinion:
He added that historical record showed that when the law was legislated the question of whether same-sex couples were fit to adopt was not considered. Vogelman wrote that the language of the law was devised by the Knesset to determine that it was for the benefit of the child up for adoption to be adopted into a two-parent family, and it was not aimed at making a determination regarding same-sex couples.
