Like other legal rights, the right to marriage may compete with the right to religious freedom. Sampradayas, temples, religious leaders, and priests thus have an inalienable right to define marriage in conformity with their traditions, as they continue to interpret and reinterpret them over time. And because Hinduism has no central authority that controls theology, different groups are free to move as fast or slow as they desire on the religious front. So while religious rites of same-sex marriage continue to evolve (and in many cases, not), governments (at least in the US and several other nations around the world), no longer discriminate in the matter of marriage as a legal right or social contract. We believe that this concept – namely that there remain freedom in the realm of religion to define and/or adapt the definition of marriage, but that governments should no longer discriminate and hold some marriages to be legal but not others – is an important nuance that is rarely articulated in Indian public discourse. It also becomes especially relevant given the magnificent diversity of cultural practices within India and the lack of a uniform civil code in the country.