INDIA VOTES FOR HOMOPHOBIA AT THE UN
By Dr. Francisco Colaço (courtesy "Goan Observer" Just a few days ago, as I switched on my TV, the popular anchor Arnab Goswami on the Newshour was debating on the topic “India votes for homophobia”. What was the issue at hand? Just on that day, apparently, a Russian sponsored resolution at the UN had sought to overturn this organization’s decision to provide the same benefits for same-sex spouses of its staff as to spouses in heterosexual marriages. And since India had voted in favour of the Russian resolution together with Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia (countries where homosexuality is dealt with as an outright crime and is sometimes even punishable by death) Arnab shouted at the top of his voice. What a shame! What a shame! A saffronite member of the panel (also in a loud voice) shouted down Arnab. Quoting Vedas and Ayurvedas (and with whatever knowledge he could muster to defend homophobia) he gave India the thumbs up. When reminded about the Kajuraho temple scenes the saffronite feigned ignorance. Sitting apart as panelists there were two gays who now and then reiterated: “even if 98 % of Indians are against us we will do what we want in the privacy of our bedrooms” . HISTORY OF HOMOPHOBIA Why sex, one of the joys of life – lived with some freedom in the Greco-Roman world or at the time of the Indian Gupta Empire (just to name two civilizations considered somewhat classical) – became in later centuries something to be ashamed of? Was it in the West because of the switch from Paganism to Christianity? And in India, because of Muslim or British Victorian influence, or of both? It is widely known how the Victorians and the British Empire influenced the views about homophobia in many ex colonies of the British Empire, and especially in India and, not without reason, today in India gay activists accuse Britain of exporting homophobia during the 19th century when colonial administrators began enforcing Victorian laws and morals on their Indian subjects. Homophobia, they say, is something alien to the original Indian civilizations. The organisation of Human Rights Watch has recently published a 66-page report describing “how laws in over three dozen countries, from India to Uganda and from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea, derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that British colonial rulers imposed on India in 1860.” We are now at a time when French President Nicolas Sarkozy has just proposed to the UN to decriminalize homosexual acts all over the world, and all 27 European nations have agreed. The Church of Rome is instead strongly against it and the topic remains hot. THE LAW IN INDIA In a big blow to the LGBT community, the Supreme Court, sometime ago, set aside a landmark Delhi High Court judgement decriminalising gay sex and threw the ball into Parliament's court for amending law, a verdict that came under attack as being "medieval and regressive". The judgement of the two-judge bench headed by Justice G S Singhvi revives the penal provision making gay sex an offence punishable with life imprisonment in a setback to people fighting a battle for recognition of their sexual preferences. The much-awaited verdict, reversing the four-year-old High Court judgement, drew sharp criticism from gay rights activists, constitutional experts, and Bollywood celebrities who termed it a "black day" and a "lost opportunity" for the apex court to expand the constitutional values. Upholding the constitutional validity of Section 377 of IPC relating to "unnatural sex", a bench also comprising S J Mukhopadhya, said the provision cannot be struck down merely on the apprehension of its misuse or changing perception of society. The bench, however, put the ball in the court of Parliament to decide on "the desirability" and "propriety" of doing away with the penal provision. The bench allowed the appeals filed by various social, religious and child rights organisations challenging the high court verdict on the ground that gay sex is against the cultural and religious values of the country. The apex court also said that foreign judgements on the controversial issues cannot be applied "blindfolded" in India for scrapping the penal provision against gay sex. The apex court refused to give credence to the submission made by the gay rights activists who had challenged Section 377 on the ground that it perpetrates harassment, blackmail and torture on certain persons, especially those belonging to the LGBT community. VIEWS OF MEDICAL EXPERTS Homosexuality is not a mental illness or disease, the country's psychiatrists said recently in a joint statement. The Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS), an umbrella body for psychiatrists across the country, said this in response to the furore over its former president Dr Indira Sharma's statement on homosexuality made earlier. Dr Sharma had earlier said while talking at a medical seminar, "The manner in which homosexuals have brought the talk of sex to the roads makes people uncomfortable. It's unnatural. Our society doesn't talk about sex. Heterosexuals don't talk about sex. It is a private matter.'' The lesbian-gay community had taken up the matter with the IPS. "Based on existing scientific evidence and good practice guidelines from the field of psychiatry, the Indian Psychiatric Society stated that there is no evidence to substantiate the belief that homosexuality is a mental illness or a disease. Therefore, the problem of gays is no longer in the purview of psychiatrists.'' Dr Sharma, who heads the psychiatry department at Banaras Hindu University, later elaborated, “I was giving a talk on homosexuality at a medical seminar. I only said homosexuality is a social issue. Sexual orientation cannot be changed by enacting laws or by punitive measures. It has to come from within. The media has a responsibility to create awareness regarding society's view on sexual orientation, whether it approves or disapproves it. My comment was neutral”. VIEWS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Homosexuality is considered in the Roman Catholic Church teaching under two distinct aspects. Homosexuality as an orientation is considered an "objective disorder" seen as "ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil", but not as sinful. Homosexuality as sexual activity, however, is seen as a "moral disorder" and "homosexual acts" as "contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. The Catholic Church believes that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, and opposes introduction of both civil and religious same-sex marriage. The Church also holds that same-sex unions are an unfavourable environment for children and that the legalization of such unions damages society. POPE FRANCIS’S “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” said Francis shortly after his election and the liberal commentariat was overjoyed. But he wasn’t offering to change the rules. Nor did he ask his bishops to do so when he called them to Rome. “Obviously only the wrapping was under discussion. Not the package. And in the end, even the ribbons and the pretty paper were thrown away. Gay people were to be reminded they were sinners and no grounds whatsoever exist for assimilating or drawing analogies, however remote, between homosexual unions and God’s design for matrimony and the family”. Catholic gays therefore face a predicament and a prominent gay writer and thinker remarks, “Pope's fine words on homosexuality are useless while the Catholic Church still calls it a sin. Since his election he has offered optimism on gays but nothing has emerged from Rome except ‘respect and sensitivity’ Then pointedly he remarks, “Precisely what awaits us on the other side remains, of course, an open question: endless torment but by what or by whom? Dante gives us the most detailed prediction: in the second zone of the third ring of the seventh circle sodomites will walk continuously on hot sand under a rain of fire”. Jocularly the writer concludes, “Think of the bishops we will meet there …”
