The rejection of same-sex marriage by India’s Supreme Court comes as a disappointment. It puts us out of step with the progressive world. Same-sex marriage is legal in 34 countries—a wide sweep of not only developed regions like the US and Europe, but also our emerging-nation partners Brazil and South Africa. There are, however, two tiny slivers of hope in the judgement.
First, although the court rejected the right of LGBTQ+ couples to adopt children, chief justice D.Y.Chandrachud’s strong observation that the “law cannot assume that only heterosexual couples can be good parents” cannot be ignored for long. Second, justice S.K. Kaul’s call for an anti-discrimination law is significant. It is only in the absence of such a law that the court has highlighted civil unions and the benefits thereof.
But equality is far greater than the sum of its parts, howsoever noble our intentions. We are—all 1.4 billion of us—equal before the law. Indian campaigners must not back down. With the ball having been passed to Parliament, the campaign for equality must challenge our elected representatives now to step up and be counted. Surely, it’s a question of when, not if.
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Updated: 17 Oct 2023, 06:39 PM IST
