The establishment of civil marriage in Israel is important to the vast majority of voters for the coalition parties, according to a poll conducted by the Smith Institute for the Hiddush Foundation for Religious Freedom and Equality.
The poll revealed that 95% of voters from Meretz, 94% from Labor, 76% from Israel Beytenu, 73% from Yesh Atid and 71% of Blue and White and New Hope voters think it's important that the politicians in their party push for civil marriage in Israel.
"This question is very important due to the intention expressed by some of the leaders of the coalition parties who are aware of the importance of freedom of marriage," Hiddush explained. "In their coalition agreements, they included a demand for an alternative to Rabbinate marriage, but they didn't follow through.
"Now these leaders are expressing an aspiration for partnership with the ultra-Orthodox parties in the next coalition, and because it's clear that these parties are the ones who prevented a civil marriage law up to now, Hiddush checked if civil marriage is important for their voters."
Close to half of Israel's adults responded in the poll that it's important to them that the party they vote for in the coming elections will demand the freedom to choose the nature of marriage in Israel. The percentage rises to almost three-fourths (73%) of secular people.
The only Western democracy without civil marriage
"The desire of the coalition party leaders to be in control is understandable and natural," said Hiddush chairman Rabbi Uri Regev. "But the parties that turn their backs on their voters and settle for the ongoing violation of human rights and dignity, like the freedom of religion expressed in the Declaration of Independence, eat away at the faith of the public in politicians and democratic leadership."
"These politicians are the ones responsible for the ongoing reality in which Israel is the only Western democracy in the world that takes the freedom of marriage away from its citizens."
Hiddush Chairman Rabbi Uri Regev
The idea of civil marriage was raised again in the last couple of months after Lod's courts ruled to accept civil zoom marriage from Utah, leading to speculation about what that could mean for the possibility of civil marriage in Israel.