“The heart of the case is right to choose.. and the heart of the matter is marital relationship.. this is regardless of gender or gender identity... and to manifest the idea of love into marriage regardless of the identities is the heart of the case.”
These were the words of Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Day 2 of the Supreme Court hearing on petitions seeking recognition of same-sex marriages.
For the uninitiated, the apex is currently hearing 20 petitions which have argued that India’s marriage laws discriminate against same-sex couples.
In a nutshell: These petitions, filed by same-sex couples, trans-couples and activists from across the country, have said that while the Supreme Court decriminalised homosexuality and recognised an LGBTQIA+ person’s ‘right to love’, it did not recognise their ‘right to marry’.
Over the course of the hearings so far, the petitioners’ lawyers, among other things, have argued that without the right to marry, same-sex couples can't avail legal benefits, which are easily available to heterosexual folks.
Here are the crux of arguments made by them over two days: