NEW DELHI, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- An Indian based NGO, Lakshya has helped 15 gay couples marry.
"It's a way to prevent the spread of AIDS," says the organizers in a report in the Hindustan Times Tuesday. The organization, which works for the rights of gay people feels this is a great service to their community.
Sylvester Merchant, the organization's 25-year-old program officer says," All the marriages we facilitated are doing well". Buoyed by this success, Lakshya is now planning to involve other organizations that work for AIDS prevention.
"In multi-partner relationships, the chances of HIV infection are more. In the MSM population -- men having sex with men -- people often have multiple partners. Marriage would discourage this," says Merchant.
Social acceptance is a problem, though Merchant takes umbrage at the question itself. "I don't need to be accepted by a bunch of people with peculiar notions of what's acceptable," he says.
Gay marriages are legal in Belgium, Holland and some states in the US, but they do not have legal sanction in India. Although the law in India does not recognize gay marriages, intercourse between people of the same sex is illegal.
