Faraz Ansari: I am dating a lovely person, but still can’t get married to him

Mumbai Oct 31 Filmmaker Faraz Ansari is upset about Supreme Court not legalising same-sex marriage, and wonders when he would be able to take the next step in his present relationship.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court refused to grant legal recognition to same-sex marriages in the country. In a unanimous decision by the five-judge constitution bench, the bench said that there was no fundamental right to marry. They left it to the Parliament to form legislation on same-sex marriage. In an exclusive conversation with IndiaToday.in, Celina Jaitly said that she is ‘disappointed’ by the verdict.

Reacting to the judgement, he says, “It took them five months to come back to us and tell us that we have no rights. Being the apex court of the country, then where do we go to seek our rights? Do we immediately become second class citizens in spite of paying our taxes on time and doing everything on time. We have no equal rights. Are we still democratic, where certain citizens have less rights than other citizens? This is a time to really look into that aspect, whether we should call ourselves a democracy where citizens don’t have equal rights. The Supreme Court should have done more to protect my equal rights. It is not about the Special Marriage Act, but basic human rights and equality which has nothing to do with age, faith, culture or sexuality”.

Here, the filmmaker shuns the idea of adding gender to marriage union. “Love is genderless. Why are we giving a gender to marriage? Why have we reduced it down to being like that? Why are we introducing these new sort of things? when love itself is very unsystematic. I don’t understand why we are reducing it down to these terms. I wonder how is it going to help give equality to citizens of the same country?”

Ansari continues, “I am at a place where I’m dating a lovely person, and I genuinely want to settle down. Now, does that mean that I’ll never be able to have my big fat Indian wedding? Because the Supreme Court thinks it’s not their decision to take, and they don’t protect my human rights. How are we going to navigate and negotiate these things?”

“We are headed towards regression. I think change will come eventually but I don’t know if we will be there to witness that. For now, I think my big fat wedding might happen but it will not be in India,” he ends.