‘India can’t afford to…': Ex-bureaucrats, IPS officers write to President against same-sex marriage

A group of former judges and IPS officers on Thursday wrote an open letter to President Droupadi Murmu against the legalisation of non-heterosexual marriages.

A group of former judges and IPS officers on Thursday wrote an open letter to President Droupadi Murmu against the legalisation of non-heterosexual marriages in India, urging her intervention in “saving Indian cultural traditions, religious tenets, and social values”.

While consensual same sex relationships has been decriminalised in the country, same sex marriages are still not recognised. (Pic for representation)

The letter - signed by a total of 104 ex-bureaucrats and 16 former judges - stated that they do not accept non-heterosexual marriages as it is “offensive to our values, besides being rational and unnatural.”

“…If we revise the law to make same-sex sexual union rational, acceptable, or moral, it will open the doors to same-sex sexual culture,” it added.

"India cannot afford that its future generations to live in such an atmosphere, which surely will produce more gays and lesbians, and tear apart and destroy the institutions of ‘family’ and ‘society’ irreparably. They won’t know about their parents, ancestors, culture, religious tenets, and age-old values," reads the letter.

According to the letter, the recognition of non-heterosexual marriages would “change the entire gamut of all personal laws, from marriage to adoption and succession.”

“We are particularly concerned about the negative impact that legalising same-sex marriage would have on children, including their emotional and psychological development, as well as their nurturing in an environment that lacks balanced parenthood,” the letter said.

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Over the past two weeks, the Supreme Court has been hearing arguments for and against the legalisation of non-heterosexual marriages in the country. On Thursday, the top court asked the Centre about the steps to ensure welfare in the (potential) absence of legal recognition of such marital unions.

The five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud also clarified that when it uses the term “recognition”, it does not mean “marriage”, adding that the Centre may think of some other “semantics” like “partners” to identify such unions that make them entitled to certain benefits.