Far-right minister slammed for seeming to equate same-sex marriage with incest

Far-right Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf appeared to compare same-sex marriage to incest on Tuesday, provoking outrage from LGBTQ rights groups.

Wasserlauf, a lawmaker from the Otzma Yehudit party, was asked during an interview by the Knesset television channel why gay couples should not receive all the benefits that heterosexual couples receive.

Wasserlauf responded, “I will answer you with a question, can a father and daughter get married?”

When the interviewer responded that they could not, noting that it was incest, Wasserlauf asked whether siblings could get married, to which the interviewer again responded that they could not.

“Why? Is this exploitation of a minor? Why can’t they get married? They love each other,” Wasserlauf pondered rhetorically.

Asked if he was comparing an incestuous relationship between siblings to a same-sex couple, Wasserlauf answered: “You said people who love each other, you used that argument.”

“The comparison you make is unpleasant,” the interviewer said. However, Wasserlauf denied he was equating the two situations, saying his point was to argue that two people being in love cannot justify every kind of relationship.

“The difference between us is where we draw the line,” he said.

התשובה של השר וסרלאוף שהותירה את ניר גונטז׳ המום. חובת צפיה pic.twitter.com/JC1zuaQCUA

— לירי בורק שביט (@lirishavit) July 22, 2024

In response, The Aguda – The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel, told Channel 12: “It is simply sad that such ignorant and benighted statements come from a person in a public position who benefits from our tax money.”

Havruta, a support group for religious gay people, said in a statement, “Those who choose to reduce people to some sort of comparison without a grasp on reality should examine their own morality, because the result of Wasserlauf’s attitude is conversion therapy, discrimination, hatred and violence.”

The Israel Gay Youth said in a statement that “more than being outrageous, Wasserlauf’s remarks are ridiculous and show immense ignorance” and that the minister had a “distorted mindset” for drawing the comparison.

A statement from Wasserlauf’s office later reiterated that he was not comparing gay marriage to incest, but rather “the logic offered by the interviewer who claims that two people who love each other deserve rights.”

Religious institutions control marriage for each of Israel’s constituent faiths, and the Jewish rabbinate hews to Orthodoxy. Thus, LGBTQ couples — like other couples not recognized by the country’s religious establishment — cannot marry in the country.

But by law, such relationships are nonetheless recognized as legal for the purposes of benefits, inheritance, parenting, adoption, and other rights if the couple is wed abroad, or in certain cases if the couple can simply prove a longstanding common-law relationship.