Israel proposes
inheritance rights for gay couples

Under a new proposal by the Israeli government, gay and lesbian couples in Israel would be able to inherit each other's property after death without making a special court application. The unprecedented provision is one of several proposed reforms to Israel's inheritance laws that the justice ministry plans on publishing within the next few weeks and submitting to justice minister Haim Ramon for approval. Ha'aretz reports that the memorandum of reforms was drafted by a public commission headed by retired supreme court justice Jacob Turkel. The commission was appointed seven years ago. The change consists of deleting the words "husband and wife" from the definition of a couple for the purposes of inheritance laws so that they would apply to gay as well as straight couples. Another amendment would put adopted and biological siblings on equal footing in terms of inheritance. (Sirius OutQ News)