Same Sex Marriage: Getting Your Vocabulary Right

Recently, A five judge bench of The Supreme Court of India delivered a 3:2 verdict on petitions seeking the rights for members of the LGBTQ+ community to marry and choose family.

The Court declined to legalise same-sex marriage, placing it upon the Parliament and State governments to decide if non-heterosexual unions can be legally recognised.

The focal point of the issue centered around the inclusion of same sex marriage in the provisions of the special marriage act, 1954 (SMA 1954).

To which the top court concluded that it can neither strike down nor read words in the SMA, 1954 to include same sex members within the ambit of the SMA 1954.

Essentially passing the onus to the Indian Parliament to discuss, debate and deliberate on the matter. Kick starting the debate around the topic on a much larger scale.

But If you are like me and many other people who don’t understand the proper meaning of the vocabulary around the same sex marriage debate, chances are that the whole discussion around the topic will delve into the realm of the unknown.

Whatever is/will be perceived as the general understanding of the terms will become accepted ‘wisdom’ and easy for the person on either side of the debate to steer the conversation to one’s chosen direction.

So it’s essential that one should do its homework before debating with one’s family, friends, peers or anyone else about the right or wrong in the same sex marriage.

First things first, let’s start with ‘Sex’, the most basic textbook definition defining it as ‘the state of being either male or female’.

Simple right? Going by this definition, same sex could mean that the two people share the same state of being either male or female.

Biologically, A person with XX chromosomes usually has female sex and reproductive organs, and is therefore assigned biologically female. A person with XY chromosomes has male sex and reproductive organs, and is therefore assigned biologically male.

Now this is where things start to get a little tricky, with the supporters showing ‘evidence’ that biological sex is not absolute and is much more than that, blurring the line between sex and gender.

Defending the argument that Gender is a social construct to define one’s role in a society either as a male or a female, sometimes ending with the extreme position that even biological sex can be changed so how does it matter anyway.

But then again, who is a male or female? If even one’s chromosomes cannot define it!

Next up, is ‘Marriage’, defined differently from different religious points of view, can be either a sanskar in the sanatan dharma sense of the term or a contract/ union between a male and a female from non-dharmik religions point of view.

Now leaving the comparative analysis between both to some other piece, sticking strictly to the issue at hand, Marriages in India can be registered under the respective personal laws Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, Muslim Personal Law Application Act, 1937, or under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.

Since Hindu marriage act and Muslim marriage act are governed by the respective religious beliefs, and is a tricky water to navigate to codify the same sex marriage provisions in it, notwithstanding the uproar it will cause in some well know quarters.

The Special marriage act, Enacted solely for the purpose where people from two different religious backgrounds can come together in the bond of marriage was sought after.

How that law is used to further the agenda of some prehistoric notions and beliefs is a tale of great sorrow and agony.

However, even the special marriage act, rests on the notion of marriage which again is dependent on the lens through which we are seeing ‘marriage’ and further it rests on the notion of marriage between ‘who’.

Getting Complicated? Well the whole point of this exercise was not to present a definite position but to shed light on some basic terminology which is so often used in the whole same sex marriage debate without really understanding the context or the manipulation under which the thing is used to defend one’s argument.

Hopefully, now better armed the debate can be more meaningful and all inclusive that factors various parties/issues under consideration and not in an isolation.