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Loading ...India: Gays are perverse
12.05.2008 8:51am EST
(New Delhi) India’s federal government has told the Delhi High Court that homosexuality is the result of a perverse mind and should not be decriminalized.
In a brief filed this week with the court, the government said that if the country’s sodomy law is overturned it could have a profoundly adverse impact on Indian culture.LGBT rights groups and AIDS outreach organizations told the court last month that the law is anachronistic, impedes civil rights and blocks AIDS groups’ abilities to reach out to gays.
The law against homosexual sex that dates to the British colonial era. The law, which forbids sexual acts “against the order of nature,” carries punishment of up to 10 years in prison.
In its submission to the court, the government said that the court should not interpret India’s Constitution in a way that would force foreign culture on the country.
The government also challenged the court’s right to question the constitutionality of the law.
“The court is not the authority to decide what should be the law or what should not be the law. These are the functions of the Parliament and the will of the Parliament is represented by its members,” the government argued.
“What are the laws and what could be the law should be left to the wisdom of the Parliament. Neither are the courts equipped nor is it the function of the court to decide what the law should be. The courts have only to interpret the law as it is,” the brief said.
Last month during oral arguments before the court the government said the law should be maintained because homosexuality was a disease which was responsible for the spread of AIDS in the country.
“AIDS is already spreading in the country and if gay sex is legalized then people on the streets would start indulging in such practices saying that the High Court has approved of it,” he told the court.
The remark brought a swift reply from the bench.
“Show us one report which says that it is a disease. A [World Health Organization] paper says that it is not a disease but you are describing it as a disease. It is an accepted fact that it is a main vehicle that causes [the AIDS] disease but it is not a disease itself,” demanded Chief Justice AP Shah.
India has an estimated 2.5 million people living with HIV. Even though the country recently has seen a modest drop in new infections the number of infections among men who have sex with men continues to grow.
Still, there are signs that homosexuality is becoming more accepted in India, at least in big cities. In New Delhi, gay and lesbian groups hold biweekly movie screenings and parties, and organizers say attendance is rising. Newspaper editorials have called for revisions to the law, and prominent writers and human rights activists have signed petitions expressing their support.
In June hundreds of people chanted for gay rights marched in three Indian cities – Calcutta, Bangalore and New Delhi – in the largest display of gay pride ever held in India.
Why do I have a sudden craving for a steak?
Why do I suddently have a craving for Chicken Saag, Kimah Samosa and Naan?.
fx, this story is about INDIA. It is not about “Yoruba” culture or language. In attempting to draw a parallel, you’ve come up with a claim that’s laughably implausible to anybody who’s ever worked in a setting of any ethnic diversity. For example, the mention of “Yoruba” culture is at the odd exclusion of the fact that most Yoruba live in Nigeria. Now, there are also Igbo and Hausa in Nigeria, and given the way that ethnic or linguistic groups like to attribute things to others (English: french leave, french kiss, dutch uncle, greek love), it would be very strange indeed if there was NO reference in Yoruba, even if it were as simple as an expression of incomprehension at the concept of two men or two women together. This said, since people have been executed in some northern Nigeria states (because homosexuality is punishable under sharia law), how strange it would be that such a thing taking place IN THE SAME COUNTRY would somehow be of no notice in Yoruba-language press, regardless of whether Yoruba were involved.
I made the sarcastic and disparaging reference to a mud hut because your gesture of presenting Yoruba culture as somehow untouched by homosexuality is ridiculous. If you’d said that it was something people knew about, but didn’t discuss because it was taboo, I’d believe that. I would never be stupid enough to allege that an entire culture was or is incapable of grasping and articulating a concept, because that would be both boorish and ignorant, but that’s essentially what you did. Mind you, I spend every workday with doctors from either Bangladesh or India, and I’ve seen enough of their work that I’d rather be treated by them than some US-born doctor of lesser expertise. I’ve worked with a doctor from Cameroon who I would place in the same category. Heritage counts for less than the individual’s own intellectual efforts. You have chosen to put forth an implausible and embarrassing notion, and it’s one I know from my own experience to be a fraud. It does a disservice to people from non-Western cultures, because its allegation that homosexuality is like some foreign spore contaminating pristine innocents is even more racist crap than alleging that the “natives” required the civilizing influence of a colonial occupier.
I started by reminding fx that this article is about India. India is not a monolithic culture–not all Hindus are the same, not all people from Maharashtra are Hindu, not all Hindus vote for the BJP. That would be ignorant stereotyping. It would not be ignorant stereotyping to note that many of the forces working to uphold India’s cultural conservatism are religious forces, and many of them have also acted to uphold the continued existence of the caste system. Acknowledging matters of sexuality doesn’t mean you have to engage in a Britney-thon. It means dealing with reality. Indian women are contracting HIV from their husbands, yet those women are demonized for the infection. This seems to be changing, slowly, but changing nonetheless. fx, I suppose that’s further proof of Western cultural hegemony. What if it’s Indians recognizing that some aspects of society and culture may have to change if Indian society is to remain physically and intellectually vital?
Again, if “Western” ways are so burdensome on non-Western cultures, then why is fx spending time here? Why devote time to something you seem to denigrate? Are you on the DL?
“I am the love that dare not speak it’s name.”
You may not be familiar with the quote, fx. You can easily explain the absence of terms in any given language. The oppressor and majority is able to manipulate language and literature in any way it sees fit. Hense, we have dozens of different translations of the Bible. At one time in the United States, people would say that they could not tell you that they knew any homosexual. Now, I would venture to say that very few could say they do not know a homosexual.
blacksteel: You claimed “These beliefs are not, however, based on serious inquiry, historical or otherwise.”.
How do you explain the absence of gays in language, folklore and the general fabric of Yoruba family and community.
And even today how do you explain the fact that a survey of age 16-25 Yoruba University students 95% cannot come up with the name of one homosexual of African origin.
If you wonder where people like fx get their ideas about homosexuality as a foreign practice, try googling “yoruba + homosexual”.
Here, for example, is an interesting explanation:
http://semgai.free.fr/doc_et_pdf/africa_A4.pdf
“Especially where Western influences (notably Christian and Marxist) have been pervasive, there is now a belief that homosexuality is a decadent, bourgeois Western innovation forced upon colonial Africa by white men, or, alternately by Islamic slave-traders. Around the world, people view homosexuality as a vice of some other people. Thus, the recurrent British claim Norman conquerors introduced homosexuality to the British Isles. Various French accounts view homosexuality as Italian, Bulgarian, or North African. Italians accept only the latter two homelands. Bulgarians attribute greater popularity and/or the origins of homosexuality to Albanians, and Albanians in turn to Turks. Similarly eastern Bantu claimed that pederasty was imported by the Nubians, Sudanese blame Turkish marauders, etc. Such views tell us something about perceived ethnic boundaries, but nothing about the origins or the historical transmission of cultural traits. The belief by many Africans that homosexuality is exogenous to the history of their people is a belief with genuine social consequences — in particular stigmatization for those of their people engaged in homosexual behavior or grappling with gay identities. These beliefs are not, however, based on serious inquiry, historical or otherwise.”
Trace: So you plan on reinventing a 6000 year old civilization by performing marriages between men in the temples at Ayodhya and Varanasi to proofe your point that you are free to so as you please. Good for you, wish you all the best.
fx, I’m not on a quest for anything other than eliminating persecution of people for being themselves.
I honestly would not be surprised if India has far more than 10% homosexuals. We will find out as India becomes more of a modern country.
Trace: So you need the magic 10% to exist in India to validate yourselves. ‘Wish you all the best in your quest.
fx, it’s amazing that you are so well traveled and remain so ignorant about basic facts. Once the laws of India are brought into the 20th century (let alone the 21st century) you’ll be amazed at how many gays of Indian decent there are.