India Weighs An Historic Expansion of Marriage Rights

the logical and inevitable next step. I want to get married. I want to get married for there isn't that many people in this country and everywhere. They believe that one day they'll meet somebody who they really love and you know, they'll be able to get married. I want to be able to do that. That's Additi Anan. She and her partner are among several same sex couples who petition the court for the right to marry. If the judges rule in their favor, the effects will be far reaching, and

not only within India itself. India's size and its political and economic influence in Asia means the ruling will be felt well beyond its borders. My colleagues Muniza Nabie and Kai Schultz are following this case and they are here with me now from New Delhi. Munisa, can you give us an overview of the case that's now before the court.

So what's the case that is before the court is several couples who are asking the court shortly after India legalized or rather decriminalized homosexuality, they're asking to have access to marriage equality. So these couples are saying, we are no longer now criminals in the eyes of the and it's time for the law and the country to go one step further and allow us those rights and privileges

that come with marriage. These include things like adoption, being able to be each other's next of kin, have each other on their insurance, and all of those things that come with marriage, the good and the bad. And how did this all come to be? It's sort of built up from the decades long fight to first decriminalize homosexuality in India, which came to pass only in twenty and eighteen.

You know, for more than one hundred and fifty years before that, it was a crime to openly declare that you were gay in this country, and even though prosecutions were read was a huge tool of harassment for the gay community. It created fear and a sort of impunity for police to come and harass you should they choose to. So. Once that sort of had come about, and that was a huge moment for the MGBTQ community in India. Once that had been achieved, it seemed the next obvious thing.

What a surprise that everybody is the speed at which this has come. In many countries where marriage equality has come, or to fight for marriage equality has come, it's been a much slower process. In India. It's been just a couple of years between decriminalization and fighting to get the rise to marriage equality. Kai Minisa described how quickly this all happened. How was it able to change so fast?

The speed has been remarkable for I think everybody that we've spoken to, and people have put forward a few theories for why they think the evolution has been so accelerated. India is a fairly Englicized country. It has a large diaspora, it has a large English speaking population. It's very much a country where people follow international media. So there was an awareness I think of rights movements in other parts of the world, including the US, that's helped to kind

of create this consciousness around these issues. Secondly, India is led by a fairly progressive Supreme Court. The bench as it currently stands, is pretty progressive on social issues. So in recent years, they've allowed women to enter sex segregated temples. They've extended legal recognition to transgender people who can identify

a so called their genders. That's how it's characterized in India, and so that's provided some of the contexts I think for the speed what happened between decriminalization and fighting for marriage equality has been quite a seismic shift in how Indian culture has viewed LGBTQ people. Twenty years ago, a film that had lesbian characters, you know, inflamed such passions that movie theaters were set on fire and you know,

the movie had to be pulled out off screens. Now we're seeing advertisements for two women buying a home together, buying wedding jewelry together, which is very iconic to Indian culture, and cinema is making nuanced, you know, not the caricatured sort of homosexual characters of the movies of the nineties which was almost sort of like the the buffoonish character our Bollywood is making films with very sort of sensitive portrayals of gay characters, so all of that has also

changed in the interim between decriminalization and pushing for marriage equality. Some of the people we spoke to have said this that seeing all of these things change, being able to see for the first time representations of themselves on screen and around them in popular culture, which was brand new, also allowed them to sort of feel that the time had come to push for more. So to give an idea of you know, what this journey has been like

for LGBTQ people in India. We spoke to this couple Adity and Susan, and it's sort of their story really is the story of what it has meant in India for so many people to grapple with their own gayness, find themselves sort of legally full citizens finally, and then find themselves in this sort of amazing place where they can reach for marriage equality, which seemed even a decade ago to them completely out of reach. And in other team Susan's story we find reflections of all of that.

So they talk about how as young women coming out even to themselves was hard. And here is Aditya Nan speaking about this to Bloomberg. Quite Jusan and I moved in within a few months of I think a few weeks of meeting each other, and you know, once we actually started dating, Susan quit her job, she moved out of our house, moved into my apartment in Bombay, and we got a dog. So I would say we started seeing each other in October and by March of next

year we were already living together. Our friends and family were extremely supportive, extremely supportive. Though it was fairly nerve racking in a difficult, difficult thing to come out because of our own fears and all the things that we had been dealing with all our lives. But it was remarkable once we actually came out to our families on both sides, Susan to her mom that night and then me to my parents the next day, it was remarkable

how supportive they've been throughout Extraordinarily. My grandmother, who is in her nineties, is not just a supporter. I mean it's completely organic, her relationship with Susan, her relationship with our son. So it's been a really, really wonderful and I know sometimes a very rare experience to have this kind of support, and we've been very lucky to have it. So much of the contacts behind these journeys comes from

a place of pain for people. India is a country where you can still very easily be harassed for being gay. You have a few legal protections, and the workforce in many instances sexual salt is common. Many of these challenges that come from living openly in countries across the world are common in India, and so the fear there persists.

And I think that that's something that many people feel marriage equality will help to abate, is the idea that they're different or separate or other from other Indians in society. Let's hear from Susan Da. She's a deity's partner and she also spoke to Bloomberg Quick Take at the time a couple of years ago, and we decided to have children is when we thought that marriage would be a

logical next step for us. And in doing that, in having and raising a child, now we realize more so the lack of a lot of things that we don't have today, legal rights over each other, the ability to you know, have a bank account, to own assets, together to be a legal parent to a child. These are all things that one either takes for granted or doesn't think about till you're faced with it. Key is it possible to measure how the Indian people feel about this?

Is same sex marriage popular? Do people want it? It's hard to say precisely. We've spoken to lawyers who have said that with decriminalization it was a fairly easy pill for people to swallow. They could understand and get on board pretty quickly with the idea that people didn't want to be considered a criminal in front of the law. And I think it was also framed as a very

private act. Marriage is a much more public institution. It holds such an important space in the Indian consciousness, and so there was some concern that the speed was so quick that perhaps it was almost too quick. What we

found though, is that public polling varies pretty widely. So in the months after decriminalization would have been in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, Poles found that anywhere from about a quarter to more than two thirds of Indians supported same sex marriage, and so it doesn't give a full picture

of support on the ground. But what we do know so far is there have been no public protests that have taken on any sort of grandeur or size or importance in the media or in bigger and urban centers, and so so far there hasn't been that pushback that some people are fearing there might be, munisa because India has such a large population and it's so influential in Asia and around the rest of the world. If same sex marriage becomes law, you write in the story that

this will have far reaching effects beyond India itself. How is that? I mean, For one thing, one hopes that it sets a legal precedent for other countries to follow a fur the more conservative cultures to follow it. It creates a blueprint. But also because in the region, even wealthier sort seemingly more advanced economies so like Singapore in Japan,

for example, haven't provided this right to their citizens. Presumably once India, or if India rather were to make marriage equality or possibility, it would definitely sort of draw talent to India, people who would feel safer working here, living here, being able to get their partners on visas and not having to sort of jump through hoops pretending that they were moving in or living with a friend so all of those things would make India sort of a stand

out in the region where this access to equality of where basic equality hasn't been made possible so far. And to add to Muniza's point, the scale of the judgment is enormous. India is, by some estimates already the world's most populous nation, and so to legalize same sex marriage would extend benefits to more than one point four billion people.

To get a sense of the scale of this would more than double the number of people globally with marriage equality rights as most of the G twenty this year. As well, India's government, which is led by Prime Minister Narendramodi, could use this ruling as evidence that the country isn't as progressive on minority rights, for instance. That's a criticism

that's often made by Western governments. And so there's a political mileage that could be gained from this ruling as well that goes beyond the leverage that the ruling could provide in terms of attracting talent from other parts of Asia or other parts of the world. Our conversation continues after the break, Muniza, We've talked about the significance of this case before India's Supreme Court and what it could mean both inside the country and around the world. Really,

let's focus now on what's happening outside the court. What are various political groups within the country saying about this issue. To begin with, we'll hear what the government actually things in a few days. Their affidavit to the court with the you know, the Law Ministry stating the government's position will be made available because the government has to take its stand before the Supreme Court, so we know more

specifically what the government has to say. The interesting thing is there hasn't been very much said at all, and that can be extrapolated as a positive thing. I think the positive has been that there hasn't been any backlash. Really, I suspect some of it as the government is waiting and watching. It's a crucial election year, so if it feels like this might not be socially acceptable, who knows. Largely what will be interesting to see is the two

elements where this ruling could go. One is how it affects Hindu marriage. Marriages in India a guided by personal religious laws, so they Hindus have the Hindu Marriage Act, the Muslims have Muslim personal Law and then there is the civil code under which interfaith marriage has happened. We know that the ruling BJP has previously opposed broaden in the Hindu Marriage Act, which applies to most of the population.

Officials have argued that including same sex couples would legitimize what they've called a particular human conduct and that it would run against Indian values. Lawyers generally expect there to be some opposition within the government, but that's not necessarily being framed as a bad thing. And to sidesteps some of these issues, most of the petitions appearing before the Supreme Court fall under a different marriage Act, which is

used for secular and inner religious unions. Lawyers hope that this route will avoid some of the landmines that are associated with amending laws specifically bound with religion, and they're building their case around the idea that marriage equality is ultimately about fundamental rights under India's constitution, that it's not

necessarily a moral issue. Muniza. More than a century ago, you write that India was much more tolerant than it has been, and that that is really a legacy of colonialism, that it's something that the British brought with them can you describe how that happened and how it played out. Hindu mythology is very very open when it comes to sexuality. There are you know, gods that change gender, men become women,

men have babies. It's all very fluid. Even for the many hundred years of Mughal Muslim rule in India, erotic homo erotic poetry, same sex love, none of it was criminalized. And then, you know, so in eighteen sixty one when the British took over rule of India, that is when the law was codified and drafted to make homosexuality a crime.

Academics and experts who've been looking at this will say that, you know, while modern India India today will often people who oppose gay marriage, for example, will critique gay marriage as a Western import, but what really is a Western import is the criminalization of homosexuality, and that ancient and even medieval Indian culture was very open and accepting, if not sort of only embracing it. Ki The Supreme Court

is set to hear this case later this month. What do you expect Are there signs of which way the court may ultimately come down. The Supreme Court is a fairly progressive institution in India, and it's led by a largely progressive Chief Justice. Last year, the court offered a hint at how the case might go, ruling that same sex couples and other what they've called non traditional families

are entitled to social welfare benefits. And so I think there's an optimism in the legal community that the ruling could be a positive one. What we're waiting on is to understand better the government's position in all of this. But ultimately, the Supreme Court is an independent institution. The Chief Justice has the power to choose the bench, and lawyers are optimistic that unless there are widespread protests against the marriage equality case, that a ruling could come as

early as this summer this fall. Muniza nacbe Kai show, thanks so much for speaking with me today. Thank you, Thank you us when we come back our broader look at same sex marriage, where is it allowed and where is it still outlawed? India isn't alone in considering same sex marriage. In recent years, several nations have legalized it, but there are many places where same sex relationships are

still against the law. For a global picture of where things stand, Gert Schatten Sander joins me from Geneva, Switzerland. They're the director of programs at ILGA World, which advocates for the rights of LGBTI people. Gert Chatton, could you give us a little tour of the world. Same sex marriage has been expanding in many places, but not in all. Can you tell us where it's legal and where it's not.

We currently have thirty three UN member states with full marriage equality, thirty four with other forms of what we call civil partnerships. The latest countries that have introduced marriage equality in twenty twenty one was Chile. Twenty twenty two, it was Switzerland, Slovenia and Cuba, and this year so far it's Andra and I believe there are other discussions happening in Japan as well. Are there regions of the

world where you're seeing movement forward? In other places where either there is no movement or there's active moves against marriage equality. If we look at the question just purely from a marriage perspective marriage equality perspective, yes, there are certain moves towards that. A lot of the discussions or narratives around decriminalization of same sex intimacy, or the fear around decriminalization, is that it would lead to marriage equality

and the call full marriage equality. We are hearing from governments in parts of West Africa where there's not even a ban on same sex intimacy, they have no laws. They are thinking of introducing those bands on same sex intimacy to ensure that there is no marriage equality. So it's going the opposite way. This is in parts of Africa and Asia. We also see even in the USA with versus Wade, the whole of the argument around same sex marriage was pinned on the decision around Rowways is Wade.

So what you see is that it's not so much the attack on same sex marriage or marriage equality. You see that it's a chipping away at these well fought rights that have been gained so forth that eventually lead to marriage equality. On one side you have a block, and the other side you have a move which could then send marriage equality backwards as well. And it's not

one region is leading, it's different patterns. I think it's always best to avoid looking at the world in a homogeneous way, or in different regions in a homogeneous way. And in fact, one of the most disturbing patterns is actually coming from North America and Western Europe. A where you see these growing anti trans anti gender rhetorics which could definitely play into the same sex marriage equality rights as well. You mentioned Cuba as being a country that

has advanced marriage equality last year. Is there a pattern at all between democracies and non democracies when it comes to enacting these laws. Indeed, I think that's something very interesting that there is data that is correlated to this and that we find that they're where there's a higher account or higher evaluation of democracies, there is more freedoms afforded towards lgbtr Q plus people. Indeed, in the case of Cuba, that is the anomaly in that sort of discussion.

You know, we are seeing right now, in particular at a time when we are seeing growing anti gender, anti rights rhetorics there are linked to anti democratic movements, anti bodily autonomy rhetoric there all do go hand in hand with a growing threat on democracy. A countrary to what I was saying earlier, there are patterns of emerging there is you know, there is the domino effect. Yes, we

see one country and then the others following. However, that does not mean every single country will follow because there's still many parts of the world, especially in Asia and in Africa, punitive laws against same sex intimacy. So whilst you will see this happening, it won't guarantee that every single country will then follow suit. There has to be certain enabling factors and enabling conditions. So in authoritarian states you see less tolerance for both same sexual relationships and

marriage equality. Indeed, that's a growing pattern that we have seen, yes, and I think there's data around that, especially from our partners and members from the Global Council of Equality that have done great work around this, who have tied work on democracy and LGBT ACUPUS rights, and in fact there has been other research that has been done, including not

just on democracy, but on economic growth as well. We see that when there's a percentage increase in rights or more rights being afforded in particular to marginalized populations, especially those who identify as LGBT ACUPUS, we see a percentage of growth in GDP as well. This is some great research that's come out from the US and from the Netherlands grid chart and seeing all the change that's happening all around the world. When you look ahead, what do

you see for the future of marriage equality. We are moving towards marriage equality, but I would like to preface this. In twenty nineteen ILGA World we produce what it's called the State Sponsored Homophobia Report. In our report, marriage equality was seen as the gold standard. Does the go to you know, we've reached it. However, in twenty nineteen our team decided against that and said no, this should not be the goal standard because it sends a very one

sided view. So what we said that the goal standard should be is constitutional rights. So once lgbt acuplus rights are enshrined in the constitution, we have better chances of ensuring equality for all the journey towards that could be one route to that is marriage equality. Indeed, we saw last year and the Netherlands have included or introduced now in their constitution lgbt acuplus protections. So I think some of this narrative around marriage equality is very very important.

But also we cannot just focus on that alone. It cannot be our end goal. Our end goal is constitutional

protections and ensure it. And because once we're in the constitution there are constitutional laws are harder to change, whereas marriage equality laws, they could change from the next five ten years, and we indeed are going to see a positive direction, but it shouldn't the end point for us, Er, Chaut and Sounder, thanks so much for speaking with me, Thank you for inviting me, Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take. It's a daily podcast from

Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you. Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Urgolina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink. Federica Romanello is our producer. Our associate producer is Zenob Sidiki. Raphael I'm seely is our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin

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