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India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

bbc.com

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Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#41

Post by i_am_nomad »

This is great, though it also illustrates how much farther India (and other countries) have to go in legal protection of LGBT people.

Also, a bit off-topic here, but it also reveals how stupid and hypocritical California's policy is, forbidding travel of state employees to US states that don't grant certain protections to transgender people. You can't go to Oklahoma because they don't have self-selection for bathrooms, but travel to places like India and China is just fine, for some reason.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#42

Post by wallace_f »

vinni2 wrote: post #35

As a gay Indian this is a great news! but it is one thing to decriminalize it legally and complete different thing for societal acceptance and leading a normal life as gay person in India. For an average gay person in India this doesn’t change much. There is still a long way to go. This law was never a problem for me but my family and relative and neighbors are. But it is a good progress.

The world is so weird. I never understood the motive behind tyrannizing other people. How is that winning at anything other than being an asshole? Why don't people just leave other people alone? Is it so much different to tyrannize a woman for being feminine, or just being attractive? Most of us are instinctively disgusted by that--or at least claim to be?

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#43

Post by M_Bakhtiari »

majewsky wrote: post #20
M_Bakhtiari wrote: post #19

I don't think this will last, not even in the west.

Care to elaborate?

It's naive to think western liberal cultural change is a one-way street. This is the kind of thing that comes in waves.

Just look at the radical transformation of the pre-colonial Kingdom of Buganda into present-day Uganda with its sodomy laws and internet meme pastors, perhaps ironically catalysed by the west, a west that has since flipped the complete opposite direction. It's only a matter of time before the tables turn again.

LGBT is at its core a small minority interest. It's an unstable system, it all depends on what the majority population happens to be interested in in this particular century.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#45

Post by EliRivers »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #40
EliRivers wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody said that. I think the cup of tea I'm drinking won't last, yet I don't think cups of tea should be illegal. Edit to update: The cup of did indeed did not last, and is now gone. I still don't think a cup of tea should be illegal.

The comment that "it won't last" was made in the context of decriminalization, the implication that something will be illegal again is hard to escape.

The comment So you think that gay sex should be illegal? was made in the context of nothing whatsoever. That's the comment I'm shooting down. The assumption that M_Bakhtiari thinks gay sex should be illegal; it is not supported in any way by M_Bakhtiari's comment "I don't think this will last, not even in the west".

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#46

Post by etiennemarcel »

simias wrote: post #39
krylon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany, the infamous §175a StGB that made gay sex illegal was only finally removed in 1994. I think it was practically ignored for some time before that, but that was only 24 years ago. And yes, it feels just as unreal to me.

I thought we had a similar law in France until the 1980's but apparently I was at least partly mistaken: >Although same-sex sexual activity was a capital crime that often resulted in the death penalty during the Ancien Régime, all sodomy laws were repealed in 1791 during the French Revolution. However, a lesser known indecent exposure law that often targeted homosexuals was introduced in 1960 before being repealed tw…

In 81 homosexuality was taken off the mental illnesses list, that's probably what you're thinking of.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#47

Post by rebuilder »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #44

The headline is weird - instead of legalising, it should say "decriminalises" in my opinion. Someone made it illegal at some point. The headline now seems to indicate "we've made a new law that allows it", but that makes it like it's an exception.

Decriminalization AFAIK is a reducement in criminal penalties while not necessarily making the act in question legal, while legalization is an outright removal of the crime status. I'm not sure whether it makes a difference that this legalization hinges on a new supreme court ruling, not legislative action.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#48

Post by blattimwind »

krylon wrote: post #13
thomasfedb wrote: post #2

The phrase "legalises gay sex" is surreal and otherworldly to me. We recent fought for marriage in Australia. Shocking to think they were and are still so backwards as to make that headline possible.

In Germany, the infamous §175a StGB that made gay sex illegal was only finally removed in 1994. I think it was practically ignored for some time before that, but that was only 24 years ago. And yes, it feels just as unreal to me.

That's not entirely accurate, because the 175 was changed quite a lot over time. Initially it was jail-for-sex, but then in the late 60s it was changed such that basically the age of consent for gays was 21 (IIRC a notable exception was that if _both_ partners were below 18 then it wasn't punishable anyway -- so only if one was younger than 18 and the other 18-21 it was punishable, which is very weird indeed). Then there was another reform which made it so that >18 having gay sex with <18 was illegal. And then, finally, with the abolishment of 175 in 94 everyone got the same age of consent.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#49

Post by madez »

wallace_f wrote: post #42
vinni2 wrote: post #35

As a gay Indian this is a great news! but it is one thing to decriminalize it legally and complete different thing for societal acceptance and leading a normal life as gay person in India. For an average gay person in India this doesn’t change much. There is still a long way to go. This law was never a problem for me but my family and relative and neighbors are. But it is a good progress.

The world is so weird. I never understood the motive behind tyrannizing other people. How is that winning at anything other than being an asshole? Why don't people just leave other people alone? Is it so much different to tyrannize a woman for being feminine, or just being attractive? Most of us are instinctively disgusted by that--or at least claim to be?

There are books that are outrageously famous that say that gay people are bad. Many people find these books so convincing that they adopt the books' views as their own.
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