Marriage equality in India: thinking beyond judicial challenges to secular marriage law

Abstract

ABSTRACT Challenging India’s secular marriage law, the Special Marriage Act (SMA), is the most popular approach for realizing marriage equality in India. I argue that it is important to think beyond judicial challenges to the SMA since only locating marriage equality in the SMA may be inadequate in realizing the potential of marriage equality for all LGBT+ persons. This is because focusing on the SMA ignores the intersectional nature of LGBT+ identity in India and also fails to account for the interconnectedness of Indian family laws. Focusing only on secular law ignores both the continuing relevance of religion-based personal laws in shaping individual identity and the legal reality that secular laws do not operate autonomously due to the interconnectedness of Indian family laws. Instead, I outline alternative approaches that range from reforming different personal laws to judicial challenges questioning the legal non-recognition of LGBT+ relationships in family law as a whole.