No evidence to oppose same-sex marriage, says Indian Psychiatric Society
Not allowing members of the community to marry among themselves or adopt children could lead to mental health problems, the psychiatrists’ body said.
There is no evidence to suggest that members of the LGBTQIA+ community cannot enjoy civil rights such as marriage, adoption, education and employment, the Indian Psychiatric Society said on Sunday.
“On the contrary, discrimination which prevents the above may lead to mental health issues,” it said in a statement.
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Position statement of Indian Psychiatric Society @IndianPsychiat1 on civil rights of LGBTQA like education, employment, housing, income, government service, access to health care, property rights, marriage, adoption and
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Support for the LGBTQIA+ community from the mental health professionals’ body comes against the backdrop of a bunch of petitions in the Supreme Court 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.
The Indian Psychiatric Society’s stand in saying that homosexuality is not an illness had played a vital role in the Supreme Court verdict in 2018 striking down Article 377, which criminalised homosexuality, reported the Hindustan Times.
In its recent statement, the body said that a child adopted in a same-sex family may face discrimination.
“It is imperative that, once legalised, such parents of the LGBTQA spectrum bring up the children in a gender-neutral, unbiased environment,” it said.
Last week, the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights had told the Supreme Court that the sexuality of same-sex couples does not put them in a position of advantage or disadvantage when it comes to the quality of parenting.
“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,” it had said.
