The Supreme Court of India refused this Tuesday to recognize same-sex marriage, alleging that marriage is not established as a constitutional right, and has asked the government and Parliament to legislate on the matter.
“It is the responsibility of parliament and state legislators to enact laws regarding gay marriage,” said Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, reading a verdict that disappoints the gay community after an intense judicial process.
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This decision conforms to the point of view of the Indian Government, which strongly opposed the country’s highest judicial body recognizing these unions.
The Supreme Court was divided on the question of the right of people of the same sex to enter into “unions”, concluding unanimously that there is no fundamental right to marriage.
“The right to enter into a union cannot be restricted on the basis of sexual orientation,” Chandrachud said, and “The Government should form a committee to decide the rights and benefits of people in homosexual unions.”
Judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul agreed, stating that these would be “civil unions” that must be recognized, while Judge Ravindra Bhat was opposed, considering that “the right to cohabit cannot lead to the creation of an institution” such as homosexual marriage.
(In other news: ‘My life is not summed up in the violence I suffered’: Gareth Sella, Deputy Minister of Youth).
Flag of the LGBTIQ+ community.
The issue of marriage between people of the same sex reached the Supreme Court last April, after several homosexual couples presented a series of petitions to achieve the legality of their unions.
These requests were possible after in 2018 the Supreme Court decriminalized, in a historic decision,s same-sex relationships by overturning a law inherited from the British colonial era.
The LGBT community sought the modification of an existing lawthe special Marriage Law, which is secular in nature and is outside the Hindu, Muslim or Christian marriage laws that also apply in India.
The Indian Government not only strongly opposed the country’s highest judicial body modifying existing legislation, but also argued that a marriage refers only to the union between a man and a woman, as well as that the concept of homosexual marriage It is “elitist and urban.”
EFE
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