Deepika Shows Support For The LGBTQ Community And We’re Glad Celebrities Are Talking About It

Deepika Shows Support For The LGBTQ Community And We’re Glad Celebrities Are Talking About It

Last year in September, India witnessed a milestone moment when Supreme Court decriminalised same-sex relationships. Prior to that, the LGBT community was rather living under a fear of arrest for basically falling in love, in an ‘unconventional’ way. Today, it is a relief that every person can finally exercise their right to love, in a way they want to and not being accused of being a criminal. Lately, Bollywood has been rather instrumental in bringing social change, and not just providing their audience with some masala entertainment.

And while same-sex relationships have been legalised, you still cannot marry the love of your life lawfully. We’re hoping India will get there soon enough, especially with the amount of support it has been receiving from influential personalities.

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Deepika Padukone, extended her support to same-sex marriages during an interview with Mumbai Mirror, “It feels strange to me that we even have to ask that question and the fact that we need to address it. We should not even allow ourselves to even be in this place where somebody else dictates how and with whom you want to spend the rest of your lives.” She echoes our exact sentiments with her statement. The fact that a section of our country still cannot choose the person to spend their lives and give it the status of marriage, is a major setback. While an orthodox section of our society would oppose this thought and deem it unnatural, we believe that the only thing that is unnatural is the fact that your love life is held ransom to archaic laws of a nation.

Deepika Padukone has always been courageous and vocal about her opinions. She was one of the first celebrities in India who opened up about her depression, thus encouraging people to talk about mental health. Her initiative was followed by several celebrities being okay with discussing a hitherto taboo topic, making it much more mainstream. We hope that a similar thing happens with expressing her opinion on same-sex marriages.

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Recently, India’s fastest woman athlete, Dutee Chand opened up about her relationship with a woman from her hometown. While she garnered international support for her courage (we regret the fact that we’re still in a phase where it requires ‘courage’ to come out of the closet) her family is completely against it. She is taking a stand for her sexual orientation and her choice to love freely. And we hope that will give courage to many more people to do the same.

ALSO READ: The Story Of India’s First Openly Gay Athlete, Dutee Chand, Is The Story Of Every Gay Person In India

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Meanwhile, Bollywood has been extending its support to normalise same-sex relationships and trying to bring about a social change. Because, you know if anything sells in India then it’s Bollywood. And when actors speak, people pay attention. That’s just how the cookie crumbles, and we’re glad the tinsel town is using its power wisely. Sonam Kapoor’s Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga was the first commercial Bollywood movie to normalise same-sex relationships. And now we’re looking forward to Ayushmann Khurrana’s gay love story Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan.

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We’re in an era of technological advancement and nothing is out of reach. The borders are fading away and Indians are becoming globetrotters, or at least have access to international culture.Maybe just maybe, this thought process will also rub off on us? While it’s okay to pick Kylie Jenner’s style from across the borders, we believe the more important thing to be inspired from is how other cultures are breaking the age-old stigmas. For instance, same-sex marriages in Vienna got legalised just early this year and they celebrated it in the most unexpected way. They hosted a lavish wedding ceremony between Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, making it the first AI wedding ever.

We hope things continue to change and we can all say ‘I do’ to whoever we want to say it to.

Akanksha Narang

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