India’s Top Court Rejects Gay Marriage, While Voicing Sympathy
India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a plea to legalize same-sex marriage, a stinging setback for gay people seeking equal rights in this socially conservative country of 1.4 billion people.
A five-member bench of judges ruled unanimously against the petitioners, with the chief justice saying it was up to Parliament to create any laws recognizing same-sex unions. “The judgment is extremely disappointing,” said Anjali Gopalan, a petitioner in the case and the head of the Naz Foundation, a nonprofit group in New Delhi that works on sexual health issues.
Still, it offered a few glimmers of hope to same-sex marriage proponents, if largely rhetorical in some cases. The judges ruled that transgender people can marry other transgender people, and expanded the definition of discrimination.
Among the four opinions they issued in the ruling, some were pointedly sympathetic to the petitioners. “The right to choose one’s partner and the right to recognition of that union” ought to be observed, even if the union does not constitute marriage, Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, India’s chief justice, wrote in his verdict.
