Two men and a baby: Israel's gay community experiencing a baby boom

[scandal 951]

"It didn't take parents too long to go from a tense and embarrassed acceptance of their son's sexual orientation to pressing the demand for grandchildren.

Hah!! The secret is revealed: never underestimate the desire for a Jewish mother to want einiklach (grandchildren) as the incentive for a whole new lifestyle.

Because the mother is not Jewish, the babies were not considered Jewish by law. Therefore, Ushik and Joey hastened to have them undergo a Reform conversion in the United States, and afterward the babies had their brit mila (circumcision ceremony).

And, of course, never underestimate the perennial "who is a Jew" debate in Israel to foul up even something as simple and problem-free as offshore gay surrogate parenthood

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088730.html

Last update - 11:28 29/05/2009

Two men and a baby: Israel's gay community experiencing a baby boom

By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Israel News, Homosexuals

On Saturdays, the employees of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Community Center in Tel Aviv's Gan Meir put the basket of free condoms that normally sits near the entrance to the park out of sight. The six-color Gay Pride flag still flies over the building, but anyone sitting in a nearby cafe might think he'd stumbled upon the children's activity corner in the mall. Unlike similar sites in Berlin or Amsterdam, visitors here will not encounter mustachioed men in leather pants or chatty transgender women. Instead, they will see a lot of babies and little kids running around. The place's family feel is a manifestation of one of the unique characteristics of Israel's gay culture: the impressive insistence on fulfilling the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply."

Lesbian couples raising children together could be found in Israel nearly a decade ago, but in the last few years, quite a few gay men have decided to become parents and raise a child together. In Israel, single-sex couples cannot employ the services of a surrogate mother, but the possibility of doing so in another country, which has been gaining popularity of late, has helped make parenthood an attractive option for them, too. Three years after the first child was born this way to Israeli parents, there are now dozens of gay male couples who have become parents. They join the thousands of lesbian and gay couples who have already had children through more traditional methods.

Three years ago, Ben, 35, felt the time had come. "I got to the point where I felt like my insides were starting to shake and act up because of it," he says. "I really felt it on a physical level, that I wanted to be a father. It was like an animal instinct, a primal need. Something in nature calling out to me." Ben has been in a relationship for nine years with Yossi, 44, with whom he lives in Tel Aviv.

At first, they considered joint parenthood with a woman, but after a few dates they decided on surrogacy. After an Internet search, they found that they could do so in the United States, through an agency that arranges the connection in return for a fee. "When we started the process two years ago, surrogacy was a fairly radical thing to do," says Ben. "But we liked the idea, because it meant that the children would come from our sperm."

Biologically, the twins are the sons of one mother, and developed together in the womb of another woman. One embryo was created from Yossi's sperm and the second from Ben's sperm. Two women were involved in the surrogacy process: The egg donor, who remained anonymous, as is usually the case, and the American surrogate, with whom they were in continuous contact throughout and after the pregnancy.

Yonatan and Yuval are now 10 months old. For the first few weeks after the two were born, Yossi and Ben stayed in America and fed them with breast milk that the surrogate pumped. Ben took a year off from work to care for them - for one thing, because Israeli law does not offer paid parental leave in a situation like this. "Any parent of twins will tell you that the first two years are very tough," says Ben. "Our own mothers look at us with admiration for how well we're doing. When I take the twins out in the stroller, I often meet people who don't understand the situation and tell me: 'Good for you - you're letting your wife have a rest.'"

'Pro-natalist' pressures?

"Surrogacy opened up a new opportunity for men to have children," says Irit Rosenblum, the director general of the New Family organization. "There's a very great desire for children among homosexual male couples. It's amazing how similar it is to how women feel. A person's desire to reproduce is not dependent on anything. It's profound and real and cannot be quashed. I find it very moving, because it's bringing homosexuals back into the community."

Until a few years ago, gay Israeli men who decided to have a child usually did so within the framework of an agreement of shared parenthood with a woman, usually a lesbian. And so we got a new kind of family in which the father and mother were not a couple, and sometimes there was a father and two mothers, or two fathers and a mother. But the progress in fertility technologies and surrogacy has made other options more attractive.

G. and D. from Tel Aviv are a couple and parents of two year-old twin girls. They were among the first in Israel to choose surrogacy as the way to fulfill their desire for children. They say that, for them, shared parenthood with a woman was not an option. "It's not that simple to maintain a relationship between two people, so why make it three or four? We're a family, and taking on another element like that would be asking for trouble, in my opinion," says G., 41.

Rosenblum also believes that the new "arrangement" of parenthood via surrogacy is preferable to a partnership agreement. "There's no avoiding it - a partnership agreement can often be very problematic, because it brings unnatural partners together for the purpose of parenthood. This triangular arrangement isn't very comfortable, apparently. People want their actual partner to be their partner in raising the child, not someone else. Today, medical technology allows [gay] men to father children who have their DNA, rather than adopting or entering into a partnership agreement with a woman."

Yehonatan Alshekh, a doctoral student at Tel Aviv University, and author of the book "Ma'aseh Sdom Politi" ("Political Sodomy"), however, views the surrogacy phenomenon as an expression of the unshakable dominance of Israeli society's "pro-natalism ideology," by which he means the pressure to have children. "Gay men are finding that they're not exempt from the pressures of pro-natalism," he says. "It didn't take parents too long to go from a tense and embarrassed acceptance of their son's sexual orientation to pressing the demand for grandchildren. Natalism is portrayed, of course, as a natural, primal desire that wells up in the body. According to this view, homosexuality places technical obstacles in its way but, fortunately, science and technology are there to save the day and help the gay man overcome this 'disability' and place a screaming newborn in his arms."

Adds Alshekh: "There's been a systematic stifling of the creative potential that could have produced developments in living arrangements that are not a clone of the nuclear family, with all its familiar problems. The development of alternatives, such as the establishment of a cooperative with a lesbian couple, is rejected as being 'outside of nature.' Meanwhile, the surrogate mother is presented as a legitimate means and even a scientific solution to this problematic 'disability,' while ignoring the terrible moral problem inherent in the tragic commercialization of the female body."

Bureaucratic runaround

Not every surrogacy proceeds smoothly. Ushik and Joey, 38 and 32 respectively, are now the parents of two-month-old twins Yahel and Re'em, after two previous unsuccessful tries that were very difficult for them and the surrogate. "We were sure that the chance of something going wrong was very low. But that's not how it happened," says Ushik. Altogether, the process cost more than $200,000. But the complications didn't end there. Because the mother is not Jewish, the babies were not considered Jewish by law. Therefore, Ushik and Joey hastened to have them undergo a Reform conversion in the United States, and afterward the babies had their brit mila (circumcision ceremony). "The next stage was the runaround in Israel, getting the children to be recognized as citizens. The Interior Ministry isn't quite ready to believe that these are our children. We're also fighting for our rights with the National Insurance Institute, because it's impossible for both of us to be working with twins who are so young."

According to Ushik, many of the these difficulties could be avoided if single-sex couples had the option of pursuing surrogacy in Israel: "I don't understand why they won't allow us to do it. Everyone has the right to be a parent. They make us spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same right that could be had in Israel for much less."

Still, they don't regret their choice for a minute, and are ready to do it all again. "It's a tremendous joy," says Ushik. "Because there's no mother around, suddenly you get this maternal feeling coming from somewhere within you. In straight couples that I know, the father takes a pretty marginal role in the beginning. In our case, both of us are completely involved." Between feedings and diaper changes, Ushik and Joey are already talking about expanding the family. "We have several frozen embryos," says Ushik. "I don't know when it will happen, but we plan to do another round."

[scandal 951]

Gay marriage is not natural as gay couples can't reproduce on their own. If everyone was gay, the human race would cease to exist in one generation. Kinda like mules.

Hey spooks, still think so?

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

:dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:

another topic to beat up the israel haters with!

[Nessa 23]

Gay marriage is not natural as gay couples can't reproduce on their own. If everyone was gay, the human race would cease to exist in one generation. Kinda like mules.

you're wrong. if everyone was gay, they'd still have kids. gay men can donate their sperm. lesbians can give birth. both can have sex with the opposite sex just to breed. bisexuals can have sex with opposite sex, etc

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Gay marriage is not natural as gay couples can't reproduce on their own. If everyone was gay, the human race would cease to exist in one generation. Kinda like mules.

you're wrong. if everyone was gay, they'd still have kids. gay men can donate their sperm. lesbians can give birth. both can have sex with the opposite sex just to breed. bisexuals can have sex with opposite sex, etc

amen Nessa!

Besides, who the fff said that reproducing is the ultimate objective of marriage? How very lame.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

This is the proof they were always waiting for.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

This is the proof they were always waiting for.

who? what?

[Nessa 23]

when? why?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

This is the proof they were always waiting for.

who? what?

You know who.

Events are now in motion.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

OH NOESSSSS!!!

[scandal 951]

:dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:

another topic to beat up the israel haters with!

Why'dya think I keep posting these articles from Haaretz? Trying to get a rise out of folks

[Chica Yeyé 41]

:dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:

another topic to beat up the israel haters with!

Why'dya think I keep posting these articles from Haaretz? Trying to get a rise out of folks

and here I am thinking it was for supporting teh gheyz.

[almaty 19]

same here...i even heard from someone..that brother scandal ..has taken a walk on the wildside

[Chica Yeyé 41]

same here...i even heard from someone..that brother scandal ..has taken a walk on the wildside

[almaty 19]

a....hermana len..i heard it from you