The Indian government has opposed recognising same-sex marriages and has urged the country’s top court to reject challenges to the current legal framework lodged by LGBT couples.
India’s Ministry of Law says that, while there may be various forms of relationships in society, the legal recognition of marriage is for heterosexual relationships and the state has a legitimate interest in maintaining this, according to the filing seen by Reuters, which has not been made public.
“Living together as partners and having sexual relationship by same-sex individuals … is not comparable with the Indian family unit concept of a husband, a wife and children,” the ministry argued.
The court cannot be asked “to change the entire legislative policy of the country deeply embedded in religious and societal norms”, it said.
“As petitioners, we have received wide support from people from all walks of life and it does not seem to me that most Indians feel injured 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 government filed the reply in court.
In a historic verdict in 2018, India’s top court decriminalised homosexuality by scrapping a colonial-era ban on gay sex.
The current case is being seen as a further important development for LGBT rights in the country.
At least 15 pleas, some by gay couples, have been filed in recent months, asking the court to recognise same-sex marriages, setting the stage for this legal face-off with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.