It is the marriage of two people of the same sex.
They have the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual couples.
Same-sex marriage is legal in over 30 countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
In many other countries, it is not yet legal.
Benefits to same-sex marriage,
It provides same-sex couples with the same legal and social recognition as heterosexual couples.
It allows same-sex couples to adopt children and raise families together.
It gives same-sex couples access to the same financial and health benefits as heterosexual couples.
It helps to reduce discrimination against same-sex couples.
A heterosexual couple is a couple consisting of two people of opposite sexes or genders.
Homosexual couples are couples made up of two people of the same sex.
SC judgement in India
A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held that only the legislature can recognize or regulate same-sex marriage.
The Bench reasoned that since there was no fundamental or unqualified right to marry, the courts cannot intervene.
The Bench failed to reach a consensus on providing even long-abiding relationships between same-sex couples.
This was despite all five judges on the Bench unanimously accepting that it was time to end discrimination against same-sex couples.
SC judgement in India
CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, with Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, declared that queer people had a fundamental right to form relationships.
Justices S.R. Bhat and Hima Kohli, and Justice P.S. Narasimha to form the majority judgment, held that “an entitlement to legal recognition of the right to union — akin to marriage or civil union, or conferring legal status upon the parties to the relationship — can be only through enacted law”.
The Bench refused to tinker with the Special Marriage Act.
SC judgement in India
CJI Chandrachud said it was within the legislative domain to rid the 1954 Act of its “institutional limitations”.
Justice Bhat found the petitioners’ plea to read various provisions of the Act in a gender-neutral manner for enabling same-sex marriage, “unsustainable”.
Previous judgments have established that queer and LGBTQ+ couples have the right to relationship flowing from the right to privacy, right to choice, and autonomy.
This, does not extend to a right to claim entitlement to any legal status for relationship.
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