Policy Watch: Central government opposes same-sex marriage
Government says Special Marriage Act requires biological male and female.
Dear Member,
Congratulations to Member Deepak Chatap for being featured in The Indian Express. He was born and brought up in the family of a farmer in Chandrapur district in Maharashtra, which he says is a historically underdeveloped area, infamous for farmer suicide and ultra-poverty. He is now at SOAS in London studying Human Rights on a Chevening Scholarship.
We’re delighted that Deepak is another of Bridge India’s members that is breaking barriers and creating positive change in society.
In 2018, the high court decriminalized same-sex sexual relationships between consenting adults, ruling that the British colonial-era law that had been in place for 156 years was unconstitutional.
A 2014 World Bank case study, The Economic Cost of Homophobia, estimated India may be sacrificing up to 1.7 per cent of its GDP due to factors related to anti-LGBTQ discrimination (courts have taken a more liberal view of equality than successive governments, whether it’s the Modi administration or the earlier UPA).
Several same-sex petitions are currently being heard by the Supreme Court that argue that India's Special Marriage Act, 1954 should allow same-sex couples to have the same legal right to marriage as opposite sex couples and that denying them that right violates several articles of India's constitution.
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