The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has filed an intervention application in the bunch of petitions seeking legal recognition of same-sex marriages before the Supreme Court.
The petition by NCPCR raised concerns over adoption of children by same-sex couples on the grounds that statutes such as the Hindu Marriage Act and the Juvenile Justice Act did not recognise adoption by same-sex couples.
Referring to the provisions which barred a single man from adopting a female child, the NCPCR stated that permitting a gay couple to adopt a female child would be against the scheme of the Juvenile Justice Act 2015.
The statutory body said that giving adoption rights to a same-sex couple was akin to endangering the children. It mentioned certain studies, which had found that children raised by heterosexual couples were emotionally more stable.
As per the plea, giving children to be raised by persons having issues, would be like exposing children to struggle just for experimentation, which was not in the interest of children as every individual had the same human rights and it applied to children for being raised safely.
The child rights body urged the Apex Court to save the children from being subjected to experimentation or being treated as ‘subject’.
Children raised by same-sex parents would have limited exposure to ‘traditional’ gender roles and this was bound to impact their understanding of gender roles and gender identity, thus limiting their overall personality growth, noted the plea.
It further raised the apprehension that legalising same-sex marriages would have repercussions on Section 57 of the Juvenile Justice Act, which dealt with the eligibility of the Prospective Adoptive Parents.
Earlier, the Delhi Commission for the Protection of Child Rights had also intervened in the matter, however, it supported the marriage equality petitions and adoption rights of same-sex couples.
As per DCPCR, multiple studies on same-sex parenting had demonstrated that they couples could be as good parents as heterosexual parents.