November 21, 2008
Nepal's Supreme Court OKs same-sex marriage
by Achal Narayanan
Religion News Service
CHENNAI, India (RNS) Nepal's Supreme Court has given its consent to same-sex marriages, ordering the country's Maoist-led government to craft laws to guarantee full rights to gays and lesbians, including the right to marriage.
"This is a landmark decision for the sexual minorities and we welcome it," said Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal's first publicly gay lawmaker and a leading gay rights activist in South Asia.
The Supreme Court ordered the government to set up a seven-member committee to study same-sex partnership/marriage laws in other countries and recommend similar legislation for enactment by Nepal, where Hindus are the dominant religious group in a population of 27 million
The court also asked the government to ensure that the language of the new law does not discriminate against sexual minorities. It ruled that cross-dressing, for example, is not perversion but constitutes an individual's freedom of expression.
"Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual ... are natural persons irrespective of their masculine and feminine gender, and they have the right to exercise their rights and live an independent life in society,"
the judges said in their ruling on Monday (Nov. 17), which came after four minority groups petitioned for legal rights for sexual minorities.
One of the minority groups, the Blue Diamond Society, founded in 2001, supported the first publicly-conducted gay wedding in Nepal, in 2006. Since then, half a dozen gay marriages have reportedly taken place in the country.
Under the ruling, Nepal joins other Canada, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and South Africa in recognizing same-sex marriage. In the United States, only Massachusetts and Connecticut permit same-sex marriages.
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