Will India accept gay couples?
“Freaking unbelievable. Absolutely speechless!” Gay rights activists in India have been posting congratulatory messages on blogs and Twitter ever since the Delhi High Court on Thursday ruled gay sex was not a crime. human rights.
Some see the ruling as crucial for the country’s battle against HIV/AIDS.
India has the world’s second highest HIV/AIDS caseload and gay advocacy groups say fear of persecution by law enforcement agencies often leaves homosexuals without easy access to health information and preventive care, rendering them more vulnerable to infection.
The gay sex debate and repealing of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that makes “unnatural sex” a punishable offence will have wide- ranging implications in the months to come.
But it’s difficult to predict whether conservative Indians would change their perception of the gay community.
India has traditionally been a study in curious contradictions that are deeply interwoven in its social fabric through centuries. If it is embracing and tolerant of alien customs, it is also proud and conservative of its own.
Visitors to the ancient temples of Khajuraho, built in the 10th century, would find homosexual couples immortalised in its stone carvings.
An evil “disease”? Gay activists fight govt. in High Court
On June 29 of this year, hundreds of gays, lesbians and transsexuals danced and sang on the streets of three Indian cities, hoisting the rainbow flag on the country’s first nationally coordinated gay pride day.
Though they waved slogans such as “gay and loving it”, many still wore masks – afraid to openly campaign against the dreaded Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which has banned “unnatural” sex since colonial times.
So where do the protesters find themselves nearly four months later, as gay activists battle a (divided) government to scrap the law, taking the case to the Delhi High Court?
The charges leveled by the government against homosexuals appear to be stacking up. Local media has quoted additional solicitor general P P Malhotra as saying homosexuality is a “social vice”, borne of a “perverse mind”.
It has been called the worst form of indecency, while an MP from an independent party called it an “evil” that has been imported into India from the western world and would change the face of India.
Worse, the government says homosexuality is “a disease” – the spreader of killer HIV/AIDS even as it infects the morality of its victims. Malhotra on Monday painted a gloomy picture indeed of what would happen if Indian homosexuals had their way: “AIDS is already spreading in the country and if gay sex is legalized then people on the street would start indulging in such practices saying that the High Court has given approval for it.”
It would, in the words of Home Minister Shivraj Patil, “open the floodgates for delinquent behaviour” for those same people who danced on the streets of Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore four months ago.
Nice to see some common sense ruling over the typically populist, backward Indian politicians.
The government has no business interfering in people’s lives. Homosexuality is just the way people are and they should be allowed to live freely and with all rights awarded to heterosexual couples.