Way to go, India. Your Supreme Court has given gays in India the same rights as anyone else. Here's a screenshot of a video on the New York Times story about this that shows people in India celebrating.
The New York Times points out, in "India's Gay Sex Ban, a Colonial Vesige, Is Struck Down," that the archaic rule against consensual gay sex was a holdover from the puritanical days of British rule.
In a groundbreaking victory for gay rights, India’s Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down one of the world’s oldest bans on consensual gay sex, putting to rest a legal battle that stretched for years and burying one of the most glaring vestiges of India’s colonial past.
After weeks of deliberation in the Supreme Court and decades of struggles by gay Indians, India’s chief justice, Dipak Misra, said that the colonial-era law known as Section 377 was “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary.”
“We have to bid adieu to prejudices and empower all citizens,” he told a packed courtroom.
The court said that gay people were now entitled to all constitutional protections under Indian law and that any discrimination based on sexuality would be illegal.
Well, they still can't marry or adopt, homosexuality has just been decriminalised. A historic verdict nonetheless.
Posted by: Bombay Blonde | September 11, 2018 at 09:27 AM
India has always been a few decades behind the west.
What is astonishing is, that it has only been a few decades since homosexuality was decriminalised in the many western countries! But, I guess that few decades gives enough leverage for moral and cultural superiority to some people....
...never mind it was English Victorian rule (was it not?) that implemented laws against homosexuality in India, a country renowned for it's historical "transgender" people, kama sutra, "obscene" architecture etc.......
Appearances can be deceiving, as can be some people's moral grand-standing......blog case in point....:)
Posted by: manjit | September 11, 2018 at 09:39 AM
"India has always been a few decades behind the west."
"But, I guess that few decades gives enough leverage for moral and cultural superiority to some people...."
You just admitted it yourself, genius.
If our morality precedes yours, as does almost everything we do except yoga, then yes, it is superior. Unless you're saying you copy things which are inferior, in which case you're admitting something worse about yourselves.
Our space program is also superior to yours because we figure things out first, you subsequently learn and follow. That is one of the essential traits of superiority. Creating, not borrowing.
Posted by: Jesse | September 11, 2018 at 10:53 AM
Jessie: "genius"
"Etymology. Jinn is an Arabic collective noun deriving from the Semitic root JNN (Arabic: جَنّ / جُنّ, jann), whose primary meaning is "to hide" or "to conceal". ... The Anglicized form genie is a borrowing of the French génie, from the Latin genius, a guardian spirit of people and places in Roman religion."
Jessie: "Our space program is also superior to yours"
"yours"? Who is that "yours" you're referring to? The UK? India? I don't know and don't care, I myself consider myself a member of the human race, perhaps, but really just a conscious being. I'll let you continue futilely projecting identity (and motive and emotion and blah :) upon me, no biggie to me!
Jessie:
Yes, indeed!
Posted by: manjit | September 11, 2018 at 11:20 AM
You just made the distinction and comparison between the west and India, Manjit.
I'm using your terms and your rules.Get mad at yourself if this hurts you so badly.
Posted by: Jesse | September 11, 2018 at 11:24 AM
@ Jesse : Wait, it's as late as 2003 that all states in the US recognised same-sex couples. And, in 2015 all states licensed and recognised marriage. So, up until 2002 and 2014, some states had the same status as India, albeit the criminal activity absurdity. It's a difference of years, not decades. On paper of course. Otherwise it's a whole different story. LGBTQ communities have come a long way in India, but also have a long way to go ! Interesting point about eunuchs in India, they're living taboos, sad. I quite liked " Caged Until Broken " ... :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_States
Posted by: Bombay Blonde | September 11, 2018 at 11:22 PM
Bombay Blonde, I was only taking an opportunity to mess with Manjit. My political and social ideas are not for this site so I talk about them sparingly.
Funny thing I noticed in India was that a few men confided in me their desire to have sex with other men, and one gave me detailed accounts about actual homosexual experiences he'd had. But these guys also wanted to be married with families.
One seemed to think gay sex was just something to do until he could get a woman, the other talked about being attracted to men and explained how he tried to get with a random French man he'd met. Neither seemed at all interested in or concerned about gay politics, social issues or anything else that is talked about in the west so much.
Sex with men had nothing whatsoever to do with their identity. Kind of refreshing to hear actually. We'll find out if homosexuality partaking in the grand game of identity politics is a good or bad thing in due time for the west and India. Right now everyone is dancing 20 yards from the end zone with another entire half left in the game.
Posted by: Jesse | September 11, 2018 at 11:36 PM
@ Jesse : In fact, the Kashmiri and Pathan men romance younger boys and are also completely heterosexual. Yes, refreshing. Indian culture is perceived as heteronormative, it's anything but. I guess the popular culture still remains stuck in a moral gene finger that points at apologetic middle-class morality ...
Posted by: Bombay Blonde | September 12, 2018 at 12:00 AM
Ruth and Naomi? How so? This guy is crazy.
And David and Jonathan? What??????
What doesn't he understand about friendship?
He can be gay all he wants, but why is he accusing other people of things they never did or felt???
Naomi was Ruth's mother in law for (any) God's sake!
Some gay guys even accused Jesus being sexual with Peter - now zero evidence to that! But to the opposite, plenty.
They don't do it to the Bible only. They accused even Jack Sparrow :) I had to laugh.
Why can't they just be gay without making other people be like them? Now that is the problem, not what they do to each other.
Not all gay guys are nice. Just take a look at the Vatican and what they do to women.
As for bigotry: I have no problem with same-sex sex for those who want that, but if you consider people judging others by sexual orientation bigots, than I am proud of being a bigot, because I would execute all the pedophiles and rapists. And force treatment on necrophiles.
Posted by: Anett | August 06, 2019 at 05:32 AM