Comment by makomk

What nyellin means by "Israel allows civil unions" is that, starting in 2011, they actually allow a man and a woman who aren't religious and who can prove this to the satisfaction of the religious authorities to get married. Prior to that it was actually impossible for many heterosexual Israeli citizens to get married within Israel because they were only considered Jewish by Israeli law and not by the Jewish religious authorities. As far as I can tell civil unions still don't extend to same-sex couples.