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Indian Court Decriminalizes Gay Sex in New Delhi by Gizem Unsalan July 2, 2009 |
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A court in India ruled on Thursday to decriminalize homosexuality in New Delhi, the Indian capital, according to the Associated Press.
The Delhi High Court ruled that treating consensual gay sex as a crime is a violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Indian constitution. So far the ruling applies only in New Delhi.
Naz Foundation (India) Trust is the sexual health organization that filed the petition over eight years ago, which is not an unusually long time in India’s notoriously clogged court system. The organization’s executive director, Anjali Gopalan, told reporters, “I’m so excited, and I haven’t been able to process the news yet. We’ve finally entered the 21st century.”
On the other hand, some religious leaders criticized the ruling. “This Western culture cannot be permitted in our country,” said Maulana Khalid Rashid Farangi Mahali, a leading Muslim cleric in the northern city of Lucknow.
Prior to the ruling, homosexual sex in India was illegal since the British colonial era, when a law classified it as “against the order of nature.” According to the overturned law, gay sex was punishable by 10 years in prison, though the law was more frequently used to harass people than to prosecute them.
The law can only be amended by the Indian Parliament, and gay rights activists have long campaigned for such an amendment. The government, which has been vague about its position on the law, remains that way— the Law Minister M. Veerappa Molly said he would examine the high court’s order before commenting. The verdict can also be challenged in India’s Supreme Court.
Until any further action takes place, however, the new verdict should protect New Delhi’s gay community from criminal charges as well as police harassment.
“This legal remnant of British colonialism has been used to deprive people of their basic rights for too long,” Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “This long-awaited decision testifies to the reach of democracy and rights in India.”
Although being gay remains deeply taboo and a large number of gays hide their sexual orientation in India, homosexuality is slowly gaining acceptance in parts of the country, especially in its big cities. Many bars have gay nights, and some high-profile Bollywood films have dealt with gay issues.
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