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SC Decriminalizes Gay Sex

 

Will SC Benefic Stymie the Stigma?


Ravi V. Chhabra-fnbworld Buy Line/ Ravi V.Chhabra

 

 

Kamasutra-fnbworld

It seems and with great fervour that the land of Vātsyāyana treatise (Kamasutra) on sensual-sexuality has come full circle in recognizing that individual sexual orientation is based on choice, freedom of expression, love and dignity. 


Supreme Court India-fnbworld

The LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community has  finally heaved a sigh of relief with the Supreme Court’s landmark verdict in abrocating IPC section 377 and taken a favourable stand/decision on the LGBT’s arduous struggle for sexual non-discrimination thereby bringing them into the mainstream. The decades-long strife to choose a sexual partner has at long last legitimized their cause with the recent Union government stand to leave it to the “wisdom of the Supreme Court” on Section 377.


LGBT unity-fnbworld

Pic courtesy: Al Jazeera


It has been a fight for freedom of sexual choice by unrelenting and passionate LGBT activists such as Ashok Row Kavi and Harish Iyer among many others. The mainstream and social media is agog with a feeling of déjà vu. The Hon’ble Supreme Court verdict legitimizing the LGBT and varied sexual preferences of people, the judgement in its favour is a bugle call for the public at large to wake up to reality and change its attitude of considering the gay people as ‘criminals’. The law must be simple and clear and even allow the gay/lesbians to marry as in most western and liberated societies.



The court’s view as ‘development’ upholding the privacy as a fundamental right in 2017 could have been pressed by the government to let the future of the colonial provision  completely be in hands of India’s highest court. Earlier, some leading pro-377 (a term for IPC Section 377) lawyers, including Harvinder Kaur Chowdhury felt that the court should weigh public opinion. She had stated, “Even after 60 years, the Parliament has not thought to delete Section 377. While three bills were moved in Parliament to strike off Section 377 from the IPC, all were defeated.” To this Chief Justice Mishra had opined, “We do not follow majoritarian morality, but constitutional morality.”


The arguments may continue for more time but there seems a consensus brewing up in the liberated society where traditionally opposite gender marriages are failing and, in fact, live-in relationships are becoming more pragmatic based on equality leading to non-legal binding but a bonding of understanding, pleasure and love.



The social media had been replete with tweets with one such by actress Celina Jaitly: “Justice to Indian LGBT is long overdue. Human rights of every individual are above all other rights; the law must put an end to the legal platform that segregates the rights of Indian LGBT from other Indians in the world’s largest democracy.”

 

On July 10, 2018 the Supreme Court started hearing relating to the arguments challenging the antiquated law interdicting homosexuality. Meanwhile, a group of LGBT activists were upbeat that the law could be turned around notwithstanding opposition from certain law makers.


Pertinent it is to mention that the court hearing comes nearly five years after it reinstated a ban on gay sex – still considered taboo by many in socially conservative societies – following a four year decriminalization, while lawyers for the petitioners opposing the law said, “The 1861 homosexuality rule when the country was under the British governance represented archaic Victorian morals and curtailed personal rights to sexual choice.” An apology is a humble one and shows our law makers are sensitive.


The Indian homosexuality law or ‘Section 377’, bans “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal” - that is widely interpreted to refer to homosexual sex. Gay sex was punishable by up to 10 years in jail, but enforcement was rare. The law, however, had been used to harass and blackmail gay people, say LGBT activists forcefully. Attorneys for the petitioners stated that sexual orientation and gender were not matters of choice but an intrinsic part of individual identity.


Anurag Kalia, a petitioner in the case had said, “Judges have been talking with sensitivity about this issue. I really liked it and I’m hopeful about it. We expect that when this (law) is struck down, we will get equal rights and a better way to live our life, with dignity.”


What is of utmost importance here is that as the society evolves, the morals and value systems too change with time for the happiness and freedom of mental, emotional and psychological development and physical privileges. The government has delightfully shaken hands with the LGBT community and promote it, said an activist on condition of anonymity.  The new generation needs to be free of such antiquated societal ‘punishment’ and gross bias!


The efforts to educate at all levels must be unambiguous so that they reach affectively and liberate the existing mindset, especially of those who have been targeting the gay community as criminals and abnormal people. Hopefully, it would set free their minds of this dogma. Education will be the key. Sigmund Freud had said: “Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function.” The gay community desperately needs to be de-stigmatized and respected in our society and that will begin with favourable law enforcement as it finally stands legitimized.

 

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