Judges V Torah
Supreme Court: Jerusalem must fund gay community
Judges say municipality discriminating against LGBT community, order it to finance Open House center
Aviad Glickman
Published: 09.14.10, 11:26 / Israel News
After years of tense waiting, Jerusalem's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community will finally receive funding from the city's municipality for its Open House center, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The court criticized the municipality for rejecting the Open House's pleas for funds, and ruled that it must hand over a sum of $120,000.
In their verdict, the judges wrote that the Open House had been rejected time and again by the municipality and only after appealing to the administrative court did they receive limited funding in the years 2003-2005.
But the victory was short lived, as later the court rejected an appeal for funds in the years 2005-2007. That was when the organization decided to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Justices Esther Hayut, Hanan Melcer, and Isaac Amit wrote in their verdict that the municipality must expand funding for community centers in such a manner that it will include those of the LGBT community and others like it.
"The history of the relationship between the sides reveals that the appellant's hand reaching out for support has met time and time again with the miserly hand of the municipality," the judges wrote.
"We cannot but express hope that the municipality will not behave stingily again and that the sides can shake hands without further involving the court."
Justice Hayut added that the gay community should be granted the special status it receives in other cities in Israel, which would guarantee that funding be provided for its activities.
Justice Meltzer said the municipality was discriminating against the community under the guise of apparently objective criteria, conduct that "has no place in the 21st century".
Justice Amit stressed that proper behavior towards the gay community was one of the criteria for a democratic state, and what separates Israel from "most of the Mideast states near and far, in which members of the gay community are persecuted by the government and society".
It was one thing for the Supreme Court to side with the Arabs against Israel most of the time.
But with this ruling it has proven beyond a doubt that it is no friend of the Jewish people or the Torah.
Why should a city that has such a high number of religious people be forced to pay for activity that is clearly against the Torah?
These judges clearly have an agenda to destroy Israel as the Jewish State unless that State is pro Arab and pro homo, sorry that State has no appeal for me.
Give me an Israel that fights to defeat our enemies both on the battlefield and in the field of ideas.
