Gay couple moves Kerala HC to strike down Special Marriage Act provisions

Special Marriage Act, 1954 only permits heterosexual (opposite sex) couples to get married

A gay couple has moved the Kerala High Court, seeking to strike down certain provisions under the Special Marriage Act, 1954, which do not permit to get their marriage registered. Considering the writ petition by the petitioners on Monday, the court has sought the views of Central and state governments on the matter. The petitioners, a business man and an IT professional had met each other in May 2018 and fallen in love. After being in a relationship for two months, they decided to get hitched. In September last year, they got married in a private ceremony.

However, the religious authorities declined to solemnise the wedding and hence the couple decided to get their marriage registered under the Special Marriage Act, 1954, which does not recognise homosexual marriages. In their plea, the gay couple stated thatit was aggrieved by the provisions of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 whereby the law provided therein only permits a heterosexual (opposite sex) couple to get married and a homosexual couple like them is denied equal access to the institution of marriage.

They claim that the impugned provisions of the Act violate their fundamental rights and are thus “illegal and unconstitutional” to that extent. Seeking declarations in this connection and to obtain the relief for getting married under the Act, the writ petition was being moved jointly by the petitioners, who submitted that they have suffered public humiliation after they disclosed their love for each other…

No single ‘gay gene’ defines sexuality, finds largest-ever DNA analysis

The new statistical analysis revealed five points in our chromosomes, called loci, which appear closely linked to sexuality, though each individually has a ‘very small’ influence

Like size or intelligence, sexual attraction isn’t defined by one gene alone, but is instead the result of the complex interplay between multiple regions of the genome and hard to pin environmental factors. That’s the conclusion of an analysis conducted on half a million DNA profiles as part of a giant study by researchers in Europe and the United States published in the influential journal Science on Thursday.

Its authors hope to bury the notion, popularised in the 1990s, of the existence of an all powerful “gay gene” that determines sexuality in the way eye colour is defined. “We… found that it’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behaviour from their genome,” said Ben Neale, a member of MIT and Harvard’s Broad Institute, one of several organisations involved in the work.

Sexual orientation does have a genetic component, say the researchers, confirming previous smaller studies, notably on twins. But the effect is mediated by a myriad of genes. “There is no single gay gene but rather the contribution of many small genetic effects scattered across the genome,” said Neale. Added to this are environmental factors: how a person is raised in childhood, where they live as an adult etc.