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Loading ...Indian court decriminalizes consensual gay sex
07.02.2009 9:06am EDT
(New Delhi) A court ruled Thursday to decriminalize homosexuality in the Indian capital, a groundbreaking decision that could bring more freedom to gays in this deeply conservative country.
The Delhi High Court ruled that treating consensual gay sex as a crime is a violation of fundamental rights protected by India’s constitution. The ruling, the first of its kind in India, applies only in New Delhi.“I’m so excited, and I haven’t been able to process the news yet,” Anjali Gopalan, the executive director of the Naz Foundation (India) Trust, a sexual health organization that had filed the petition, told reporters. “We’ve finally entered the 21st century.”
But some religious leaders quickly criticized the ruling. “This Western culture cannot be permitted in our country,” said Maulana Khalid Rashid Farangi Mahali, a leading Muslim cleric in the northern city of Lucknow.
The court’s verdict came more than eight years after the New Delhi-based foundation filed its petition – not unusually long in India’s notoriously clogged court system. The verdict can be challenged in India’s Supreme Court.
Sex between people of the same gender has been illegal in India since a British colonial era law that classified it as “against the order of nature.” According to the law, gay sex is punishable by 10 years in prison. While actual criminal prosecutions are few, the law frequently has been used to harass people.
The law itself can only be amended by India’s Parliament and gay rights activists have long campaigned for it to be changed. The government has remained vague about its position on the law, and Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said he would examine the high court’s order before commenting.
The court’s verdict, however, should protect New Delhi’s gay community from criminal charges and police harassment.
“This legal remnant of British colonialism has been used to deprive people of their basic rights for too long,” Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “This long-awaited decision testifies to the reach of democracy and rights in India.”
While the ruling is not binding on courts in India’s other states, Tripti Tandon, a lawyer for the Naz Foundation, said she hoped the ruling would have a “persuasive” affect.
“This is just the first step in a longer battle,” Gopalan said.
Rights activists say the law, also popularly known as 377, or section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, sanctions discrimination and marginalizes the gay community. Health experts say the law discourages safe sex and has been a hurdle in fighting HIV and AIDS. Roughly 2.5 million Indians have HIV.
Homosexuality is slowly gaining acceptance in some parts of India, especially in its big cities. Many bars have gay nights, and some high-profile Bollywood films have dealt with gay issues.
Still, being gay remains deeply taboo, and a large number of homosexuals hide their sexual orientation from their friends and families.
Religious leaders in the capital and in other parts of India argued that gay sex should remain illegal and that open homosexuality is out of step with India’s deeply held traditions.
“We are totally against such a practice as it is not our tradition or culture,” said Puroshattam Narain Singh, an official of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council.
In New Delhi, Rev. Babu Joseph, a spokesman of the Roman Catholic Church, told New Delhi Television that while homosexuals should not be treated as criminals, “at the same time we cannot afford to endorse homosexual behavior as normal and socially acceptable.”
all i can say, is congratulations New Delhi
Actually the ruling applies to ALL of India–
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4731089,prtpage-1.cms
I think it is wonderful India has applied the rule of Law hopefully this will be their Stone Wall.
Heterosexuals are tone deaf and have a mental block when it comes to human rights issues. This is well documented and evident. Take torture and abuse issues currently in the news, here and around the world. The human race – mainly made up of heterosexuals, is a frighteningly scary place for all of us. I understand (as they seem not to) they are the source of many of man kinds problems. The heterosexual people are unable to work out the worlds problems, and the problems are getting worst with every new generation. The heterosexuals, are self righteous – prophesizing body of people. In their defense, some one has to be – they are that group. Self appointing jurisdiction reigning law and order. Law is meaningless without order.
I personally regard the heterosexual race is in dire straits. There seems to be a identity crisis here. Should any one here care to do some reading: you will find ‘Susan Faludi Stiffed – The Betrayal of the American Man’ © 1999, uncanny investigative reporting.
I like the heterosexuals. I deeply understand what they are going through – in this mad world: they are the losers. If the heterosexuals can’t get it together: there is little hope for the rest of us.
Yes, Kari…I suppose you have some dumbsh*t bumper-sticker on your car which reads: “America, Love or Leave It” next to another one which reads: “My Country, Right or Wrong!”
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Kari Said:
“It’s quite obvious you just want to feel big and important by bashing the US, especially since the bashing isn’t even legit.”
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Get over yourself, Kari. Sorry, I’m not a bootlicker like you. And I’m sure that it offends you when people call it like it is.
America is a fascist country. A morally backwards, socially diseased, bigoted, hatefilled, “ignorance worshipping”, violent, hypocritical, heartless, profiteering, poor excuse for a quasi-civilized country.
Did I miss anything?
PS – Click on the my Blue name in the header of this comment, and it will take you to someplace where you can read examples of just what I described.
…I stand by my statement.
That’s over a BILLION PEOPLE, 17% of the world’s population, on the road to a happier, less cruel and closeted life. This is the first step on a very rapid road to social acceptance.
Oh and regarding the religious leaders, perhaps they should address the mass infanticide and abortion of unwanted female babies and the murder by immolation of thousands of young wives by their in-laws every year, not to mention the abomination of the caste system.
Peter: Having laws against things makes those things attract social stigma.
Colonialist Western influence either imposed laws against homosexuality or spurred states to adopt them. Even now, states that have long histories of homosexuality being socially accepted now treat it as taboo. (Japan is an excellent example.)
It’s ironic that people would claim that the gay rights movement is an attempt by the West to dilute their culture… When gay acceptance was the norm before the West came in the first place.
Many other former British colonies still have criminal statutes against homosexual activity, imposed by the Colonial Office in Victorian times. Perhaps the Delhi High Court’s decision may eventually inspire places like Jamaica to recognize that their prosecution (i.e. legalized persecution) of gay people is a nasty remnant of 19th-century imperialism that should have no place in the 21st century.
Steve,
Fred wrote homophobiac rant about how gays “should be raped and then shot in the head.”
James
James what did Fred do?????
Fred,
You are now in the spam pile. Enjoy the rest of your sad life.
Sincerely,
James
Rob: European countries have plenty of their own issues with LGBT people. On some issues, particularly those related to transpeople, many are light years behind the United States.
It is still very difficult in most of Western Europe to get the state to recognize a gender reassignment; it was illegal in the UK until 2004 and the criteria of continential European governments for what surgical/lifestyle changes constitutes a sex change is much more strict than it is in the US.
As much as it might be nice to believe that in Europe LGBT people are equals, they aren’t, and the continued lobbying of gay-rights organizations there is evidence of that.
There is just as much of a vocal, obnoxious religious minority in Europe as there is in the United States.
I would note also that the US is the the (only?) Western nation that even has the idea of “separation of church and state” as a legal construction. What courts in the US call “ceremonial deism” is much more strongly entrenched in European governments than it is in the US. Several (Norway, Iceland, Greece, Finland, Denmark, the UK, parts of Switzerland, among others) officially recognize state religions, something that would be unheard of in the United States.
Is it wrong to say that Europe is overall more politically left-wing than the US? No. That would be correct. But to suggest that Europe is far ahead just indicates complete and utter ignorance of the situation outside of the US.