Should India's religious marriage laws include same-sex/queer couples? - Page 2

Originally posted by: Tismaarkhan

Even if india as a country allowed samesex marriage, how do you force maulanas and priests in the church to perform religeous ceremony when it's strictly prohibited in their scriptures and religion.

Freedom of religion means that individuals within each community are free to practise their personal faith. It should never be interpreted as a religious organization's right to infringe the freedoms of individuals.

So, if a Muslim or Christian leader orders maulanas/priests not to officiate at weddings for LGBTQ+ couples, but the law recognizes that religious marriage services must be accessible to everyone without discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, then every individual officiant must follow the law. If they want to obey the leader too, the onus is on them to do so without breaking the law.

No one can be forced to perform any ceremony. Any officiant who wants to perform same-sex or gender-nonbinary religious marriage ceremonies must be free to do so, and anyone who doesn't want to perform them can choose any option other than "we serve only cisgender couples" or "we serve only heterosexual couples."

Option 1: All of our officiants serve all couples without unlawful discrimination.

Option 2: We always have one officiant available for same-sex or gender-nonbinary couples, and so our supernumerary officiants are permitted to wait for cisgender heterosexual couples only.

Option 3: All couples must present proof of their registered marriage before we will perform the religious ceremony. We can discriminate on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, caste, race, economic class etc. because our make-believe is not a legal marriage service.

Option 4: We don't offer religious marriage services to anyone. Go get registered!

Originally posted by: Tismaarkhan

So you need to ask those two communities for their opinion first n foremost to see how feasible your proposal is.

Civil rights should be guaranteed by the Constitution, not turned off and on according to popular opinion.

Muslims and Christians did revise their holy books over the early centuries, but nowadays they simply ignore the text when their beliefs change according to the society in which they live.

Are they allowed to capture slaves in India, or stone people to death, just because their holy books teach those practices? No; instead of asking your question, "How do you expect us to change what's written in our one and only holy book?" they quietly abide by the laws of India that allow people different from them to be alive and free.

Laws are enacted by creating, amending, or striking down statutes, and sometimes parts of the Constitution. Legislation of human rights is never a question of consulting any religious text, let alone asking anyone to change it.

Freedom of religion means that you or I could start a new religion today with its own freshly written Holy Book, and we should have the same rights and obligations as religions that are centuries old.

The principle of equality prohibits discrimination against any person on the basis of any immutable characteristic. Sex chromosomes and other karyotypic traits, gender identity, and sexual orientation are as immutable as skin colour or ethnic origin. All of this diversity is equally deserving of protection.

Religious identity is not an immutable characteristic, but it has been treated like one historically. Freedom of religion must include freedom of queer individuals to practise their ancestral religious traditions to the extent that they don't infringe on anyone else's constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms.

If two individuals want to live in a same sex relationship it is their personal preference. They have the freedom to do so. But ther are also people who do not believe in same sex marriages and relationships and it is their way of thinking and their personal view. Nobody has any right to thrust their opinions on others or force them to change their opinions.

Many religious scriptures do not opprove same sex relationship. Correspondingly their laws are framed.Asking the religious organisations to change the laws is in effect forcing people to accept what a  section of community believes and practices. That's not correct.

Christian religion does not perform gay marriages but what they do is give blessings to the couple.

Giving blessings to same sex wedding is a midway solution that protestant church world over adapted.

Don't know about what's happening in Hinduism though.

Courts would not force an organized religion to change its rules. Such progress is only achieved by activism within a religious community. However, courts can and do decide which customs of a religion are legal, illegal, or criminal within India.

No organized religion writes the laws of India.

Indian laws don't define how any religion is organized or governed, do they? The laws don't insist that individuals have to obey any local or central authority. Whoever is born into a religion, or converts to a religion, remains free to choose whom to obey within that religion, right?

The laws simply grant individuals who identify with a particular religion the right to solemnize marriages according to their religious customs.

If a local purohita, dastūra, qazi, padre, rabbi or whoever wants to follow gender-neutral religious customs and officiate at marriage ceremonies for same-sex and gender-nonbinary couples, or such couples want access to marriage according to their religion, Indian personal laws must provide for that free exercise of religion because discrimination on the basis of gender is unconstitutional.

Originally posted by: BrhannadaArmour

Courts would not force an organized religion to change its rules. Such progress is only achieved by activism within a religious community. However, courts can and do decide which customs of a religion are legal, illegal, or criminal within India.

No organized religion writes the laws of India.

Indian laws don't define how any religion is organized or governed, do they? The laws don't insist that individuals have to obey any local or central authority. Whoever is born into a religion, or converts to a religion, remains free to choose whom to obey within that religion, right?

The laws simply grant individuals who identify with a particular religion the right to solemnize marriages according to their religious customs.

If a local purohita, dastūra, qazi, padre, rabbi or whoever wants to follow gender-neutral religious customs and officiate at marriage ceremonies for same-sex and gender-nonbinary couples, or such couples want access to marriage according to their religion, Indian personal laws must provide for that free exercise of religion because discrimination on the basis of gender is unconstitutional.

Indian religious authorities are not writing Indian law but they as in priests shoudn't be forced to perform gender neutral/nonbinary same sex etc marriages just because law of the land allows the same.

If xyz decides to follow a religion that person should accept those religious beliefs and teachings too. If that particular religion says such and such an act is wrong they should accept that. One cannot disregard the rules and laws of that religion and expect the authorised people/priests of that religion  to comply with their wishes.

Freedom of expression and choice of lifestyle and beliefs go bothways.

Nobody is stopping people from staring their own religion and write books for that religion. Many breakway cults and sects from Christianity have started this way in the west particularly US. I'm sure Indian laws are compatible with that .

I found some of the questions, concerns, statements and even poll choices in this thread, a little confusing!

I did vote for the choice "No religious marriage ceremony should be legal without registration". After all, in 2006, the Supreme Court made it mandatory to register marriages, so how can anyone pick any other choice?!

It's also unclear to me whether you want the parliament or the supreme court to intervene in this matter? How do you propose parliament or the supreme court to "unpick" so many personal laws especially when some family laws like the Mohammedan law or Muslim law on marriage is not even codified in India? Yes, the parliament is capable of passing some revisions and acts to deal with some challenges (to put it mildly) but I don't think the supreme court has any recourse but to steer clear of personal laws. It could do judicial review but all they have in the constitution is article 44, one of the Directive Principles of State Policy, which avers that the states shall endeavor to secure a Uniform Civil Code for its citizens. Clearly, the constitution chickened out from enforcing it.  "Guiding principles" not enforceable by courts are as useful as screen doors on submarines.

What I believe India should have is a common set of laws (Uniform Civil Code) for personal matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and adoption for all citizens, regardless of their religious affiliations. Ironically, some opponents of UCC argued that imposing a common civil code may dilute the unique rights and protections enjoyed by minority groups so I don't know what recourse a sexual minority has at that point.

Of the 34 or so countries in the world which have legalized same-sex marriage, 23 have done it through legislation after nation-wide votes. Would any national party in India make same-sex marriage their top election issue? I highly doubt it.

Difficult to implement without UCC.

Granting legality is as much a herculean task as sensitising people towards the relationship. That too is important.

Legal aspects come with their own complications