‘No sex for you!’ says MK

Politics makes strange bedfellows — like Meretz chairwoman Zahava Gal-On and Shas MK Nissim Ze’ev, for example.

The two argued about marriage and sex in the Knesset on Monday, when Gal-On and others put forth a bill to raise the legal age for marriage.

Currently, men can marry at 18, while girls of 17 can marry. The change would primarily affect couples in the ultra-Orthodox and Arab communities, in which marriages to underage brides are most common.

A number of MKs, as well as various child activist groups, have attempted for the past several years to raise the age at which women can marry to 18, arguing that girls younger than that are incapable of making such important decisions about their lives. Ultra-Orthodox parties, meanwhile, have opposed such legislation.

“There’s never a dull moment in the Knesset,” Gal-On wrote on her Facebook page after the hearing on Monday. “Just now, in a debate on a bill put forward by myself and other MKs to raise the legal marriage age to 18, MK Nissim Ze’ev of Shas proposed outlawing pre-marital sex.

“I’m happy to say that our bill was authorized — so the Shas MKs will have to continue pining for the Middle Ages.”

More than 260 people “liked” the comment. One took things a giant step further, though, playfully announcing a mass event to be held in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Friday, in which “100,000 people will have premarital sex to spite Nissim Ze’ev.”

Shas MK Nissim Zeev (photo credit: Abir Sultan/Flash90)