Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Indian court ruling makes gay sex unlawful again
NEW DELHI — India’s Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision on homosexuality Wednesday, making consensual same-sex sexual acts a crime again in the world’s most-populous democracy.
The court ruled that India’s colonial-era homosexuality law — which says gay sex is “against the order of nature” and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison — is constitutional.
Changing it should be left up to the country’s Parliament, not the courts, the judges ruled.
Human- rights activists called the move a “major setback” to the decade-long fight against the law — known as “Section 377” — which was ruled unconstitutional by the Delhi High Court in 2009. That ruling was seen as watershed moment for the burgeoning gay-rights movement in a traditional and religious society where many homosexuals feel the need to conceal their sexual identities.
At a news conference after the decision, activists said they were shocked and discouraged by the court’s ruling.
“It’s a black day for us,” said Anjali Gopalan, the founder of the Naz Foundation, a nongovernmental organization that fights HIV/ AIDS and was the petitioner in the original Delhi case. “I feel so exhausted right now thinking we are being set back by 100 years. … I think it’s pathetic and sad.”
The court’s 2009 decision was opposed by many religious groups. A lawyer for the government who presented arguments in the case before the Supreme Court 21 months ago — in February 2012 — called gay sex “highly immoral.”
“All religious communities — Muslims, Christians, Hindus — had said that this was unnatural sex,” said Ejaz Maqbool, a lawyer representing religious groups.
“Today the Supreme Court held that the earlier judgment was wrong. Tomorrow if the nation feels and if the Parliament feels this is a provision that needs to be removed from the Indian penal code, than it can.”
Prakash Sharma, senior leader and spokesman for the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a conservative Hindu group, lauded the court’s decision.
“A few thousand people who claim to be homosexuals cannot dictate rules for the majority. They cannot decide what is right and what is wrong,” Sharma said.
In the years since homosexuality was decriminalized, human-rights activists say, more gay and transgendered Indians have felt freer to gather and openly talk about their sexuality. Colorful gay-pride parades are more common, and there is a gay radio station — Q Radio — in Bangalore, the country’s technology center.
Now homosexuals worry that they will again be harassed or blackmailed by law enforcement or have trouble accessing health care and other services. After the ruling, dozens of protesters turned out to oppose the decision in the capital, wearing black arm and head bands, chanting “My body, my right” and holding signs that read “Proud to be Gay” and “Don’t I have rights?”
“I am shocked that I am living in a country today that wants me to go back into the closet. I am not going back into the closet,” said Shaleen Rakesh, a gay-rights activist and director of technical support for the India HIV/AIDS Alliance.