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(LifeSiteNews) — The Supreme Court of India will begin hearing final arguments in favor of the legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriages next month, a legislation change opposed by the government.

The country’s highest court is set to hear support for such relationships after receiving several pleas challenging current legislation that still recognizes marriage as a union between a man and a woman. A five-judge bench will hear the arguments on April 18.

India’s Ministry of Law maintains that marriages recognized under the law should only be reserved for a man and a woman, according to a private court filing provided to Reuters.

“Living together as partners and having sexual relationship by same sex individuals … is not comparable with the Indian family unit concept of a husband, a wife and children,” the government stated in the filing. The ministry also criticized the requests “to change the entire legislative policy of the country deeply embedded in religious and societal norms.”

Dattatreya Hosabale, an official within the national Hindu volunteer organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, endorsed the government’s position on the debate, saying “marriage can only take place between persons of opposite genders” and that “we agree with the government’s stance on same-sex marriage [sic].”

The hearings come five years after India overturned an 1861 provision that effectively criminalized sexual acts among members of the same sex. In September 2018, LifeSiteNews reported that a five-judge court unanimously voted to repeal the rule, which prohibited “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.” Violators faced up to 10 years in prison.

The overruling does not include a ban on sex with minors or animals and did not change its law on same sex “marriages.” Motions to reverse the ban on homosexual acts was initially introduced in 2001. Eight years later, a lower court ruled in favor of the change, which was reversed again in 2013 by the Supreme Court. A final petition to reconsider the legislation was submitted by LGBT activists in 2016, which led to the law’s repeal two years later.

In 2014, the Supreme Court also recognized a “third gender” for gender-confused individuals identifying as “transgender.”

Same sex “marriage” is an ongoing controversy around the globe, with more western countries rejecting the truth about marriage and family beginning with the committed union of one man and one woman, including Canada and the United States. In December 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a bill titled the Respect for Marriage Act, which repealed the unenforced Defense of Marriage Act, federally recognized any civil “marriage” between two people regardless of sex and forced all 50 states to recognize legal unions between heterosexual and homosexual couples conducted in any state.

However, some countries remain committed to the traditional family and seek to eliminate same-sex unions. Last month, the Anglican Church of Kenya publicly criticized the Church of England for blessing homosexual “marriages,” calling the decision “hypocritical and a blatant lie.” More recently, the prime minister of Uganda introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill to criminalize sexual behavior between members of the same sex.

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