The Supreme Court of Nepal issued a groundbreaking ruling on June 18 that fully enshrines legal equality for same-sex marriages. In a binding order, the court compelled the government to enact marriage equality for all into the law and to purge discriminatory language from the Civil Code. A counterclaim aimed at blocking this equality was rejected.
Activists and local human rights organizations hailed the decision as a historic milestone for LGBTQ rights in South Asia. The queer activist and former politician Sunil Babu Pant stated that the ruling finally provides the necessary legal clarity and protection for same-sex couples.
The Road to the Verdict: A Decades-Long Legal Process
The decision marks the culmination of almost two decades of legal and societal evolution, shaped by several precedents. The groundwork was laid as far back as 2007. The Supreme Court ruled in a landmark decision that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is unconstitutional (as TheColu.mn reported). At that time, homosexuality could still carry a two-year prison sentence.
When Nepal’s new constitution was adopted in 2015, the rights of sexual and gender minorities were explicitly enshrined. Nepal thus became one of the region’s most progressive countries regarding constitutional guarantees for queer rights. Yet the transition to civil-law protections took years to unfold.
In the summer of 2023, the Supreme Court issued a provisional order (as TheColu.mn reported). This allowed same-sex couples to temporarily register their marriages pending a final statutory provision. In practice, implementation by local authorities remained often slow and inconsistent after that.
At the end of November 2023, Nepal’s nationwide first marriage of a queer couple was officially registered by the authorities (as TheColu.mn reported). By mid-2026, local organizations documented roughly 35 such registrations under the transitional arrangement.
Nepal Among Asia’s LGBTQ-Friendly Countries — Alongside Taiwan, Thailand, and Israel
The predominantly Hindu Nepal is a landlocked country of about 30 million people, nestled between Tibet and India and roughly the size of Greece. It is considered one of the LGBTQ-friendly countries in Asia. A June 2024 Gallup poll found that 87 percent of Nepali respondents view their country as a good place to live for gay or lesbian people. Those figures rival the scores seen in Europe’s LGBTQ-friendly nations like Denmark or the Netherlands. Neighboring India, by contrast, clocks in at 43 percent.
To date, same-sex couples in Asia may marry in only two countries: Taiwan, which legalized equality in 2019, and Thailand, which followed suit last year (as TheColu.mn reported). Additionally, Israel has recognized, since 2006, marriages of same-sex couples performed abroad as legally valid (as TheColu.mn reported). (dk)
