Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of Indian Penal Code Section 377 and has set aside Delhi High Court judgment of July 2009. Law must be changed by legislatures, not by courts.
IPC 377 makes sex against order of nature with man, woman, or beast a crime. Delhi High Court had held what consenting adults do in private should not be covered by law. That had dangerous implications. That would have meant drug trafficking, polygamy, prostitution, and many other things are legal. On 11/12/2013 Supreme Court set right the wrong committed by Delhi High Court.
Many times a vociferous minority dominates a silent majority. In this case the minority against IPC 377 dominated. This minority had extensive TV coverage to express its views. Anchors were hostile to people who defended IPC 377. By minority I mean a numerical minority and not any other minority. The hostility continues. Now Supreme Court judges are target. There anchors talk of tolerance but are intolerant against people who do not agree with them. The questions and discussions are loaded against IPC 377. If there is one person to defend IPC 377 there are eight people to speak against it.
Law Minister Kapil Sibal expressed willingness to pass a law to nullify Supreme Court judgment. What about a law to help Campa Cola residents? Salman Khurshid said he had not read the judgment. He is External Affairs Minister. This concerns Home Minister. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said government has to abide by Supreme Court judgment. Manish Tewari said government has already taken a stand, need to decriminalise.
Baba Ramdev and Zafaryab Jilani welcomed Supreme Court judgment. Baba Ramdev claims he can cure homosexuality through yoga. Fr. Dominic Emmanuel said decriminalization is not legalization and making homosexuality legal will increase HIV cases. I do not see any difference between decriminalization is not legalization. What is not a crime is legal.
Will Parliament take up the matter? Congress lost badly in recent elections. They would not like to lose more votes. BJP is not likely to support amending IPC 377. Politicians want blessings of religious leaders. BJP members want blessings of Hindu leaders. Other politicians want blessings of all religious leaders, especially Muslim leaders. Lok Sabha elections are a few months away. At this point no politician would like to offend religious leaders. Even Arvind Kejriwal of AAP wanted support of a Barelvi leader.
IPC should not be tinkered with. Some want suicide to be made legal. If attempted suicide is not a crime then abetment to suicide is not a crime. A suicide bomber can fill a truck with explosives and crash it against Parliament House or any other building resulting in hundreds of deaths. Those who abetted in the crime cannot be punished. Many murders pass off as suicides or accidents. There will be no investigation of such deaths.
There are pseudo-liberal, pseudo-modern people who want to turn everything upside down. Many who oppose IPC 377 also oppose death penalty for murder and high crimes. Those who speak of Supreme Court judges having medieval mindset are pseudo-modern.
Some want to mislead others saying homosexuality is not against religion. Most religions condemn homosexuality. St. Paul in Letter to Romans wrote “That is why God let go of them and let them do all these evil things, so that even their women turned against God’s natural plan for them and indulged in sex sin with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sex relationships with women, burned with lust for each other, men doing shameful things with other men and, as a result, getting paid within their own souls with the penalty they so richly deserved.” (Rom 1/26-27). Christianity is against sex outside marriage and marriage is between one man and one woman.
What about police filing FIRs against who claimed they are gay? They can start with culprits who appeared on TV channels.
Indira Jaising should be sacked as Additional Solicitor General for speaking against Supreme Court judgment.
What happens in other countries is their business. What happened during Mahabharata is not applicable now. That time polygamy was rampant. Draupadi had five husbands. Bheeshma abducted Amba, Ambika, and Ambalika for Vichithraveerya and Chitrangada to marry. Ganga committed infanticide.
Justice G. S. Singhvi said those who criticise judgment should read it first. People are reacting without reading homosexuality judgment.
