Jamiat moves plea in Indian SC opposing same sex marriage

Muslim organisation Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind in an application opposing petitions demanding legal recognition to same-sex marriages before the Supreme Court.

Earlier last month, the Centre filed an affidavit in the top court opposing the demand for recognising same-sex marriage.

The SC is expecting a batch of petitions on April 18 regarding the legalisation of same-sex marriage, to this, the Muslim body said, “The nature of prayers in the present petitions are in complete contravention of the established understanding of the concept of marriage in all personal laws– between a biological man and a biological woman– and thus intends to rake up the very core, i.e., the structure of a family unit prevailing in the personal laws system.”

The application filed through advocate MR Shamshad said, “This concept of same-sex marriage goes to attack the family system rather than making a family through this process.” It said that in Muslim faith, homosexuality is prohibited and in the Islamic paradigm, fathers and mothers are complimentary to each other but not interchangeable.

While the petitions relied on the changing legal regime in other countries towards recognizing same-sex marriage, the Jamiat, through its president Maulana Mahmood Madani, said that there cannot be an imposition of a “radical non-religious worldview” in established, inseparable and core principles of religions.

“The concept of marriage between two opposite sexes is like basic feature of the concept of marriage itself which leads to the creation of a bundle of rights (maintenance, inheritance, guardianship, custody). By these petitions, petitioners are seeking to dilute the concept of marriage, a stable institution, by introducing a free-floating system by introducing the concept of same-sex marriage,” the application said.

With homosexuality decriminalized by the Supreme Court in 2018, the petitions filed by members or organisations supporting the rights of the LGBTQ community asserted before the Supreme Court that the denial of legal recognition to same sex marriages violated fundamental rights.