Data Point: Situating the debate on same-sex marriage
The HinduThe Data Point is a bi-weekly newsletter in which The Hindu’s Data team decodes the numbers behind today’s biggest stories. Attitude towards homosexuality in India While the Union government claimed that the legalisation of same-sex marriages merely voiced “urban elitist views”, data show that the urban elite people were not more accepting of same-sex relationships than the rural poor. Around the world While the attitude towards homosexuality, same-sex relationships and marriages varied to some extent across groups in Indian society, the government’s position against same-sex marriages is not unique, since only 34 countries have legalised marriage between homosexual couples, even though 133 countries have decriminalised homosexuality. Religious beliefs, political attitudes and economic conditions of a country factor into the people’s attitude towards homosexuality, let alone same-sex marriages. Two-thirds of people now live in a country where lifetime fertility corresponds with zero growth, with only eight countries accounting for half the projected growth in global population by 2050 is India’s projected population by mid-2023, ahead of China’s 142.57 crore, according to data released by the United Nations.