Widow remarriage is an offence! Just like dowry and domestic violence. And homosexuality is a social vice. It results in the spread of AIDS. Not treating homosexuality as a criminial offence will encourage it.
These are some of the enlightened positions our government our government has taken in an affidavit to Delhi’s High Court. The last mughal, Bahadur Shah Jafar, might have held more liberal opinions than our current rulers in Delhi. Homosexuality spreads AIDS? Well so do sex and blood transfusion. Why not criminalize these acts too?
Same sex union is criminal in India and that is one reason why gays and lesbians resort to unsafe practices like seeking multiple partners. The affidavit says that the law is there because the Indian society disapproves of homosexuality. I agree that a large part of Indian society does so and strongly. But a government should not always follow the society slavishly. Sometimes it should lead also. Just like marketeers. Marketeers do not only serve existing demands; they also create new demand through innovation and advertisement.
Even if government follows the society, who are The Society? How to aggregate its preferences? Is it the voting majority? We use majority rule to elect our government. But majority rule has serious limitations. That is why we have individual rights guaranteed by the constitution to protect individuals against the tyranny of the majority. We would have never had any progressive legislation if governments always followed the majority slavishly. India won’t be secular and women not equal to men if majority opinion were the law of the land.
Government of India should rescind clause(s) of Article 377 of IPC that criminalize adult homosexuality. I think the government should not just stop at changing the statute. It should also try to shape society’s opinion with help from the civil society.
