Marriage equality order is not just about LGBTQ+

The Supreme Court (SC) delivered a divided verdict last week on granting constitutional protection to civil unions and adoption rights for queer couples, even as it was unanimous in ruling that there is no constitutional right to marry and that the State can step in when its interest in democratising private space overrides the interests of privacy.

- Utkarsh Anand

But it's not just about the rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ+) community. At stake is also a raft of petitions challenging the validity of several anti-conversion laws enacted by some state governments in recent years. These petitions argue that the anti-conversion laws dangerously imperil the freedom of conscience and the right to make choices in matters intrinsically involving privacy; but the unanimous verdict in the same-sex case appears to back the role of the State in regulating marital unions and "private space", and could bolster the government's defence of these anti-conversion laws.

The tryst between anti-conversion laws and the judiciary is a long one. Forty-six years ago, a five-judge Constitution bench of the SC affirmed the validity of anticonversion laws in Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, saying the freedom to propagate one's religion did not grant a fundamental right to convert another person.

The 1977 ruling also acknowledged the State's role in enacting such laws to ensure public order which could otherwise be affected by complaints of forcible conversions.

Drawing from the apex court's ruling, at least seven other states drafted their own version of anti-conversion laws over the last five decades - some of them legislated chiefly with the stated objective of forbidding marriages that are perceived by Rightwing groups as an instrument of coercion to convert individuals from one religion to another (loosely referred to as love jihad).