Israel’s LGBT community praised President Barack Obama on Thursday for expressing his support for same-sex marriages.

In an interview that aired Wednesday with ABC, Obama stated he had personally concluded that same sex couples should be able to get married.

Irit Rosenblum, founder and CEO of the organization New Family, called the move extremely important. “It is a huge step for the enlightened world that the strongest leader publicly recognizes the new family. In doing so, he is obviously posing a challenge to the world’s religious public. I think that this is certainly a very brave act. He is creating the necessary world balance. At a time when it seems the world is becoming increasingly fundamentalist and conservative, this is a liberal point of light.”

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According to New Family, there are currently some 18,000 same-sex families living in Israel. Some 4,500 children are being raising in same-sex families, and that number has risen significantly in recent years.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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