In India, the lead petition in the Supreme Cour was moved by a gay couple, Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dang, who have been together for almost 10 years. They had a wedding-cum-commitment ceremony on their 9th anniversary in 2021 to celebrate their relationship. However, despite the same, they do not enjoy the rights of a married couple.
The hearings in the matter were equal parts encouraging and disheartening to all, especially to India’s LGBTQIA+ community.
The Central government argued against legalisation based on a wide range of grounds – from preserving traditional family values to the dubious argument that legalisation would lead to a case for lifting the prohibition on incest. The Solicitor General also made a submission that gender fluidity would be impossible to accommodate in statutes. He had said,
“A person who does not identify with any gender is called agender, genderless…it is impossible to reconcile through a judgment…they refuse to be categorised in any gender identity…there are also people who change gender as per surroundings…Then there is gender as per mood swings…There is amicagender, where gender is changed as per the friends they have…anogender where gender identity fades in an out with intensity and comes back with another gender identity…”
At the same time, the hearing, which was live-streamed by the Supreme Court, saw heartfelt arguments from the counsel representing the petitioners.
They argued that the right to marry is an extension of the right to ‘privacy’ and the right to ‘cohabit’ and since the right to family is recognised under Article 21, the right to marry also has to be granted to same-sex couples. Their arguments highlighted that sexual orientation and gender were innate characteristics of a person, and to discriminate on the basis of this would fall foul of the fundamental right to equality.
Source: Barandbench
