On Saturday 15th November, over one lac people in USA demonstrated by holding public rallies all over that country to pressurise state and federal governments into passing clear laws that would allow gays and lesbians to have full rights to choose their life partners (of the same gender, obviously) and enjoy the same rights as married - heterosexual - couples. I guess if a similar event was to take place in India, the rally would have demanded quotas for gays and lesbians in IITs / IIMs / government jobs and so on.
Leave alone marriages, Indian law does not even sanction homosexuality - as if sexual habits are controllable by promulgating GRs (government resolutions). Same gender sexual acts are considered illegal and hence punishable by imprisonment. Imagine the government telling everyone tomorrow that it is compulsory to derive pleasure only by eating Shrikhand (श्रीखंड ) and anyone eating रबडी will be summarily arrested. How can anyone, least of all the government, dictate what the sexual preferences of an individual should be - unless this leads to some kind of a law and order problem?
Do we realise that if we allow same - gender marriages, adoptions will increase & that's a crying need today. I am not suggesting that such marriages should be thought of as a "solution" to the problem of orphans (who ironically are mostly unwanted and abandoned children of heterosexual couples) but surely increased "adoptions" would be a welcome offshoot.
The supreme court has recently opined that a man and a woman "living together" will enjoy (along with their children) the same privileges that traditionally married couples do. I guess we will just have to tweak our present laws a little more to cover same gender couples.
Will same gender marriages or live in relationships be sanctioned by religion? Since there is so much hypocrisy in religion, I don't think this will ever happen. In recent years, the church has found it extremely difficult to justify the child abusers amongst its clergy and has reportedly settled many cases, "out of court". Most religions give great importance to celibacy knowing fully well that they are going against natural human inclinations that have been ordained by their own GOD. There is no evidence to suggest that celibacy leads to higher spirituality. Religions will therefore always condemn same gender marriages as something "satanic".
For once, I must support our health minister in his crusade for gays and lesbians - Dr Ramadoss otherwise gives us very few occasions to root for. Let us live and let live....instead of persecuting fellow human beings for something which is really none of our business and over which they have no control.
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6 comments:
Dear Sir,
Indian laws about homosexuality may be medieval but Indian society is extremely liberal towards this issue.
Hijras are an age old tradition. There are references to them even in our scriptures. Many of them are actually castrated males: very few persons are real intersexuals. They earn their livelihood by singing and dancing. Society not only tolerates them but is fairly generous towards them. They also find favour with a number of male clients. Some of these keep them as permanent concubines. They are the darling of Hindi cinemas. Their community has a well fabricated social and religious structure and they have their own quaint rules and practices. Society leaves them alone.
I suppose, next to Thai society, Indian society is most tolerant so far as normal and the so called deviant sexual behaviour is concerned.
I wonder whether this is part and parcel of our general spirit of tolerance!
Yours
Ravi Shivde
I don't see it happening in India any time soon, at least not until our government is headed by many young people, essentially a fantasy.
However the passage of such laws has to be democratic for it to be justified. One cannot replace a law that is allegedly held by a minority by another law that has been democratically proven to be held by a minority (which is why the proposition was passed). The demonstration by over 1 lakh people means nothing to me. Going strictly by the size of a procession, illegal immigrants in the US should have rights comparable to the legal immigrants because they held a procession of an unprecedented size last year.
The persecution of gays and lesbians must unequivocally stop. Nobody has the right to physically harm someone because of a different school of thought. Again this goes against the same democratic principles.
Same gender marriages - NO
Amarjeet Garewal
I dont think government has any right to interfere in anybody's personal matters. People will do what they want to whether it is made legal or not. Rape, corruption, dowry etc are also illegal (as per the Govt) but i dont think people take it seriously and it is evident from the similar cases happening in our country everyday. So whether it is legally allowed in India or not will not make much difference.
The so called wise men in our country want us to believe that same sex marraige will disturb the normality in civil society and will push us into the anarcy which is prevelent in western society.
Could be true. No arguments on that.
But let me ask them, is everything in our society perfect. We have a concept called CASTE which has divided our society into fragments and each fragment fights for education, job, drinking water, place of worship, etc. Do we find such a horrible discrimination in western society.
Our fore fathers have said that caste categorisation is to be based on behaviour and would be decided after a person becomes an adult. But we have conviniently interpreted that to be caste from birth. So now we have people from the brahmin caste committing crimes. If that is not a farce, what is?
So let us not get too worried about what is good and bad for our society, Let us permit our people to stay in peace and be happy, the way they want to be. As long as they are not hurting others, we can always have same sex marriage.
I do not agree to ur opinion in favour of same gender marriage.Same gender sex is unnatural and perversion
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