A new bill to protect people's right to choose rabbis for marriage

The Tzohar movement succeeded in getting a special law passed to help couples wedding:

The so-called “Tzohar law” to abolish regional marriage registration districts was passed into law Monday evening ending a long running feud between the Tzohar national religious rabbinical association and the religious establishment.

The new legislation, which passed its second and third readings in the Knesset plenum Monday night, will allow couples to open a marriage registration file with the local rabbinate of any district or city they wish regardless of where they themselves reside. Until now, registration had to be conducted in the municipal jurisdiction of one the spouses of an engaged couple, limiting their options in choosing a professionally run rabbinate and even the rabbi they would like to marry them.

Predictably, United Torah Judaism raised a ruckus about this again:

A feisty debate preceded the passage of the bill, with MK Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism accusing Deputy Minister of Religious Services MK Eli Ben Dahan of not caring about the Torah, and alleging that the bill would make the marriage registration process unreliable.

"You have disengaged from the Torah of Israel and you will be responsible when there is a disengagement from Judea and Samaria," shouted Gafni from the Knesset podium.

Oh, he just had to drag all that into the subject, didn't he. The same one whose party joined Sharon's remnant government years ago and helped him to commit a retreat along with socialist tactics. In all these years, Gafni has done little more than unmask himself as a most dishonorable man, unworthy of the very seat he crowds.

This bill could definitely help to tidy things up and make marriage better for everybody.

Update: some more info here. And here's still more at The Jewish Press.