New Delhi, March 12
Activists and members of the LGBTQ+ community have criticised the Centre’s opposition to granting recognition to same-sex marriage, saying despite India’s plurality and diversity the government still believes that marriage rights can only be given to heterosexuals.
In an affidavit before the Supreme Court which is scheduled to hear the matter on Monday, the Centre has said legal validation of same-sex marriage would cause a complete havoc with the delicate balance of personal laws and accepted societal values.
It, however, added that non-heterosexual forms of marriages or unions between individuals though not recognised are not unlawful.
Reacting to the Centre’s affidavit, equal rights activist Harish Iyer and a member of the community said India is a nation of plurality not homogeneity.
“Unity in diversity is a lesson we learn in our schools. Everyone is equal in the eyes of law. Yet we afford marriage rights only to the majority and not us minorities. The state in its stance has confirmed that they believe that marriage is only between a biological man and a biological woman and their offspring,” Iyer told PTI.
Iyer further slammed the language used by the Centre in the affidavit.
“The very language reveals that the state needs a crash course on sex, sexuality and gender. The correct terms are cis man and cis woman. Now that the Supreme Court has written down Section 377, I would like to know from the state how they define LGBT families,” Iyer said.
In its affidavit, the government submitted that despite the decriminalisation of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, the petitioners cannot claim a fundamental right for same-sex marriage to be recognised under the laws of the country.
A queer scholar and PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, who prefers to be identified as Q, said queer intimacies predate the Indian State by many centuries and the State has always been fundamentally heterosexual.
“The Centre stated that the traditional heterosexual family unit is foundational to the existence and continuance of the State. This is partly correct. The State has always been fundamentally heterosexual; its institutions, its laws, its capitalist structures, even its borders veered toward the cis-heterosexual upper caste male. The State is also drenched in its masculinity. That being said the Centre hides within these truths one distinct untruth – that the continuance of the State has never been in question,” Q said.
