Fragmented citizenship in a religious-national democracy: homosexuals in Israel

Abstract

Fragmented citizenship has been a concept describing a deficit in the rights granted to citizens, which may be subject to fluctuations. This paper suggests that the expansion of citizenship is connected to an ideational shift while fragmentation occurs when institutional structures and core values inhibit change in certain areas. The case under discussion is the status of homosexuals in Israel. The country has been described as a gay-friendly society where homosexuals enjoy a plethora of socio-economic rights on the one hand, but are denied marital rights on the other. Expansion of citizenship was made possible owing to a gradual process of liberalization and growing institutional receptivity. This however, did not conclude with the full social inclusion of Israeli homosexuals but rather with citizenship fragmentation. Granting full citizenship rights would have been incompatible with Jewish national core values backed by the institutional autonomy utilized by resistant veto actors.

Keywords:

• Fragmented citizenship
• veto
• sexual citizenship
• institutional autonomy

Notes

1. LGBTQ advocates often emphasize their personal military record when arguing for inclusion. For instance, the head of the ‘Blue White Pride’ movement used such a frame when participating in a hearing of the Knesset oversights committee on 16 March 2017.

2. Amendment to the Equal Opportunity in the Workplace Law (1992); Anti-Defamation and Slander Law (1997); Prohibition of Discrimination in Products, Services and Entry to Places of Entertainment and Public Places Law (2000); Patients’ Rights Law (2004), and Students’ Rights Law (2014).

3. In the final reading of the 1992 amendment to the Equal Opportunity in the Workplace Law only 5 out of 18 religious incumbent MKs opposed the law. This was also the case in the Anti-Defamation and Slander Law of 1997 (4 out of 23 religious MKs); Prohibition of Discrimination in Products, Services and Entry to Places of Entertainment and Public Places Law of 2000 (1 out of 19 religious MKs); Patients’ Rights Law of 2004 (0 out of 22 religious MKs); and the Students Rights Law of 2014 (2 out of 30 religious MKs).

4. Both verdicts drew heavily for the precedent of Funk-Schlesinger v. The Minister of Interior (143/62 HCJ [1963]) in which the courts instructed the state to list an interreligious marriage preformed abroad even though similarly to same sex marriage, interreligious marriage was not permitted in Israel.

5. Some scholars assert that these entitlements made the status of marriage alternatives so strong that they staved off any claim for legalization of marriage (Kama 2011; Gross 2015).

6. For instance, both the Embryo Carrying Agreements Law (1996) and Children Adoption Law (1981) limit parenthood (via surrogacy or adoption, respectively) to heterosexual couples.

7. It is worth noting that the Israeli courts are also restrained from intervening in this matter due to a clause in the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty that restricts its application to legislation following its own enactment.