Indian opposition parties name LGBTQ+ activists to key posts

NEW DELHI — India's main opposition Congress party this week set up a new internal group to promote LGBTQ+ rights while another party has named a person from the community as its spokesperson, in the first such political recognition after many setbacks.

The country's top court in 2018 decriminalized homosexuality but greatly disappointed the LGBTQ+ community last year when it declined to legalize same-sex marriage and left it to parliament to decide. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has also said the legislature is the right platform to rule on the contentious issue, and this week invited the public to share views on how best to ensure that policies for the community are inclusive and effective. Same-sex relations are mostly a taboo in the largely conservative country of 1.42 billion people, and the government told the Supreme Court last year that such marriages were not "comparable with the Indian family unit concept of a husband, a wife and children". Congress, whose political clout has risen after doing much better than expected in the April-June general election, this week named LGBTQ+ activist Mario da Penha as the head of its new unit for the community under its All India Professionals’ Congress division. This follows Congress's poll promise to bring in a law to legalize civil unions between same-sex couples. Da Penha said on X it was the "only representative framework for queer people within any recognised national political party in India". Anish Gawande, who last month became the first person from the community to become the spokesperson for a big party, the opposition Nationalist Congress Party - Sharadchandra Pawar, said da Penha's appointment was "a major moment for queer inclusion in Indian politics." Gawande earlier said on social media of the Nationalist Congress appointment: "If you'd told me 10 years ago that it would be possible to be out and in Indian politics, I would have scoffed in disbelief." The federal government says it has taken a host of measures for the community, which includes enabling same-sex couples to access government food programs as families, open joint bank accounts and choose each other as nominees, and seek medical and other care without discrimination.

The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment said in a statement on Sunday it had invited inputs from the public to ensure that policies and initiatives for the community are inclusive and effective. It did not mention any law to recognize marriages between same-sex couples. A spokesperson for the ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment..