ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI: The government of India opposes recognizing same-sex marriages, it said in a filing to the Indian Supreme Court, urging the court to refuse challenges to the current legal framework lodged by LGBT couples.
The Law Ministry believes that there may be various forms of relationships in society, the legal recognition of marriage is for heterosexual relations, and the country has a legitimate interest in maintaining this, according to the filing seen by Reuters, which hasn’t been made public.
“Living together as partners and having sexual relations by same-sex individuals … is not comparable with the Indian family unit concept of a husband, a wife, and children,” the ministry argued.
It said that the court couldn’t be asked “to change the entire legislative policy of the country deeply embedded in religious and societal norms”
“As petitioners, we have received wide support from citizens from all walks of life, and it doesn’t seem to me that most Indians feel wounded by the thought of some loving families getting legal rights,” one of the litigants in the current case, businessman Uday Raj Anand, told Reuters after the Indian government filed the reply in court.
In a historic verdict in the year 2018, India’s top court decriminalized homosexuality by scrapping a colonial-era ban on gay sex. The current case is being seen as a further significant development in LGBT rights in the country.
Gay couples’ plea to recognize same-sex marriages
At least 15 pleas, some by gay couples, have been filed recently asking the court to recognize same-sex marriages, setting the stage for this legal face-off with Premier Narendra Modi‘s government.
