70th year of Independence and the question that arises in my mind is,
how free are we? Often in our speeches we talk about freedom but don’t describe what being free really is. Mentioning it in our constitution won’t make it practically successful. In my terms, freedom is not just right to express or speak, for me, freedom is leading the life in your terms, making choices that you are happy with, beyond religion and beyond gender.
To be specific, in today’s article, I am going to talk about the same-sex marriage. I and my friends were discussing it and I realized how orthodox we are, when my friend said that it’s affecting the Parsi religion, also she kept another point forward that was that the children of homosexuals are likely to be homosexuals themselves. Another friend said that for nurturing a child both the parents of opposite gender are required. I was astonished by their facts. First things first, how come a child of homosexual is assumed to be a homosexual himself, a normal couple can also have a child who is a homosexual. Also there it is pointless bringing religion in between. We keep on saying that country or the nation is not developing, how will it develop if the youth has such naïve opinions about something that should totally be an individual’s choice.
In India, we have freedom of everything, only not to marry the person of our choice. Not only India but also worldwide, as
there are almost 77 countries of the world that oppose same-sex marriage. In Iraq, they even give the
death sentence for the same, how dreary. Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan are some other examples where it is not allowed.
India being a vast nation should be surprised to know that in 2014, in tiny nations of Africa same-sex marriage was allowed.
In 2014, almost all the countries of Europe allowed same-sex marriage, while on the contrary in the USA, there are 13 states like Alabama, Florida that prohibit homosexuality. There we go with the facts that freedom is not about infringing on an individual’s personal choice.
Marriage is not a compulsion rather a choice and everyone, not only in India but worldwide should be given such a mere right, of choosing their life partner.
Written by Chayanika Singh
Unique name right? Well, I am a big time foodie and a travel junkie but I also love to write about serious issues and problems all over the world. Sometimes my write-ups will be of great joy and sometimes they’ll make you think about issues.
