The sexuality of same-sex couples does not put them in a position of advantage or disadvantage when it comes to quality of parenting, the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights has told the Supreme Court, Live Law reported on Thursday.
In an application filed in favour of same-sex marriages, the child rights panel said: “Multiple studies on same-sex parenting have demonstrated that same-sex couples can be good parents or not, in the same manner that heterosexual parents can be good parents or not.”
The Supreme Court is hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of several laws that allow for marriages in India only between heterosexuals.
The petitioners have argued that these provisions are discriminatory against the LGBTQ+ community and infringe on their fundamental right to dignity and privacy. On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government has opposed these petitions, arguing that same-sex marriages are “not comparable with the Indian family unit concept”.
The government’s stand is in consonance with that of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, who have maintained that marriages should be allowed only among opposite genders.
In its application, the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights has asked the Supreme Court to direct the Centre and state governments to take steps to normalise same-sex families.
It added that public awareness was needed to understand that children belonging to same-sex couples are not “incomplete” in any way, according to Bar and Bench.
“Unless equal rights are accorded to homosexuals, their acceptance, assimilation and legitimacy will remain under troubled waters,” it said. “This again is bound to have its bearing upon adolescents.”
The child rights panel also urged the court to issued directions to schools and educational institutions to “proactively emphasise normalising” the concept of same-sex families when the topic is touched upon in classrooms, according to Live Law.
“Education boards [should] check and eliminate homophobic content in school textbooks; rewrite or re-envisage passages, caricatures, diagrams and references to family to include more diverse understandings,” it suggested.
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