gay sex decriminalised in India
ailuropoda melanoleuca torontonensis
The top story, right now, on the *Mop&Pail* website (finally, real
news; there IS life after Michael Jackson):
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/india-decriminalizes-homosexual-sex/article1203903/
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INDIA DECRIMINALISES HOMOSEXUAL SEX
Stephanie Nolen / New Delhi
The New Delhi High Court struck down the law that criminalized
consensual homosexual sex today, in a move that will radically change
life for millions of gay, lesbian and transgender Indians and
represents a huge shift for gay rights in the developing world.
In an unequivocal judgment, Justice S. Muralidhar invoked the
country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his belief in
inclusiveness as laid out in the constitution. [...]
The case has bounced between courts for more than eight years.
The law is a holdover from the British colonial administration, and it
is similar to laws still on the books in many former colonies across
the developing world. In India, it has rarely been used for
prosecutions, but rather is a favourite tool of police who use it to
threaten and extort gay men and transgender people in particular.
The judges refrained from entirely striking down the law because it is
the only statute covering child abuse. Only the section covering adult
behaviour was read down.
[full story at URL]
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ailuropoda melanoleuca torontonensis
very pleeezed
JTEM
ailuropoda melanoleuca torontonensis <chris.ambi...@utoronto.ca>
wrote:
> Good news for the fruit in the subcontinent - and
> for the rest of us.
That is great news! Now, about that dot...
ailuropoda melanoleuca torontonensis
the law that criminalised same-sex sexual contact. The *Mop&Pail*
story is:
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/india-decriminalizes-homose...
Today, their lead editorial comments on this change:
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/india-overcomes-an-archaism/article1204822/
INDIA OVERCOMES AN ARCHAISM
From Friday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Friday, Jul. 03, 2009
03:32AM EDT
National borders do not keep ideas out. The idea that the state has no
place in a nation's bedrooms, and that homosexuals are entitled to the
same dignity as any other human beings, is about to transform India,
as it has transformed Canada and other Western democracies. The rest
of the developing world still lies ahead.
Homosexual sex was a crime throughout India until yesterday, when the
New Delhi High Court ruled that provision unconstitutional. It was an
archaic provision – rooted in a bizarre definition of “unnatural
offences” – and yet it was on the books in Western countries until
recently. Canada decriminalized sex between men in 1969, two years
after Pierre Trudeau, then the justice minister, said, “What's done in
private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code.” In
retrospect, that was the first step on the road to gay marriage,
legalized by court decision in 2003.
The pace of change is accelerating, as ordinary citizens and
constitutional courts pull each other along, and as ideas flow by
means of film, books, cheap long-distance telephone connections,
travel and the Internet. In English common law, sodomy was first
recorded as a crime in 1290; the idea then was that anyone who engaged
in it should be burnt alive. That idea, and its variants, had a long
life. Gay sex was penalized by hanging in the 1500s (the Buggery Act
of 1533), and oral sex was not removed from the definition of buggery
until 1817. The death penalty remained until 1861, the same year the
“unnatural offences” proscription against gay sex was introduced in
British India.
As recently as 1986, the United States Supreme Court upheld anti-
sodomy laws; those laws continued to exist in 13 states until 2003,
when the Supreme Court struck them down. The World Health Organization
removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders as late as
1992. And only this week, the British Conservative Party apologized
for having supported a 1988 law that banned local authorities from
showing homosexuality in a positive light.
In the face of such widespread change, India's defence of its archaic
law wilted under scrutiny. Each argument made by the country's Home
Affairs ministry – that gay sex is immoral according to the majority
in India, and that allowing it would lead to a flood of flagrant
homosexuality, with a resulting rise in HIV-AIDS – was quickly shot
down by the New Delhi court, citing court decisions in Canada and
other democracies. Even the country's Health and Welfare ministry
argued in court against the Home Affairs ministry, saying that
criminalizing gay sex drives it underground, and leads to more HIV-
AIDS, not less.
The ascendant idea now is that the state must not undermine human
dignity by singling out homosexuals for different treatment. Its time
has come in India, and its travels are far from over.
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crouching chemist, hidden panda