Crime & Justice

India’s ruling party opposes same-sex marriage

New Delhi, Dec 19 (EFE).- A lawmaker of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday opposed same-sex marriage in the parliament, even as the issue is being scrutinized by the Supreme Court, four years after it decriminalized gay sex.

The politician’s statement is being seen as a reflection of the government’s stand on the issue.

“Marriage is an institution wherein both men and women live together and carry forward the human chain by producing children. Given that same sex marriage is a societal issue, the judiciary shouldn’t decide over its legality,” BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the parliament.

He said that the question of same-sex marriage should be “deliberated over in parliament and in society instead,” adding that just “two judges” could not decide on such a serious issue.

“Against the demands of left liberals and activists who want to grant it legal recognition under western influence, I urge the government of India to staunchly oppose same sex marriage in court,” Modi insisted.

The country’s top court has agreed to hear several petitions for recognizing marriage between people of the same sex, and in November, a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud urged the government to clarify its stand on the issue.

The case over the legality of same-sex marriages has reached the Supreme Court after being heard at several lower courts, but the Indian government had already opposed these unions last year in the Delhi High Court, arguing that they were incompatible with the concept of the Indian family unit.

In a historical decision, a Supreme Court bench which included Chandrachud had in 2018 revoked a British law dating back to over 150 years ago that criminalized sex between people of the same gender as an “act against nature” punishable by imprisonment. EFE

daa/ia

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