India’s LGBT Community Dares to Hope After Health Minister’s Comment on Gay Rights
Global Voices
India’s LGBT Community Dares to Hope After Health Minister’s Comment on Gay Rights
Posted 26 August 2014 14:19 GMT
A recent comment by India's health minister that gay people are entitled to human rights just like anybody else has rekindled hopes among the country's LGBT community, which has fought a long battle to convince the government to decriminalise homosexuality and uphold social justice.
The minister was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of an event organized by the health ministry in Delhi. When asked about his views on gay rights and decriminalization of consensual gay sex between adults, Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that everybody has human rights and it is the job of the government to protect them. Though he refused to elaborate further on the topic, the statement was widely read as supportive of the LGBT cause and widely welcomed — both by the LGBT community as well as on social media.
However, some within the LGBT community continue to be skeptical despite the minister's positive comment.
Four years ago, the LGBT community in India had broken into celebration when in a landmark judgement the Delhi High Court decriminalized consensual homosexual relationships between adults. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code or IPC (adopted into the Indian Constitution by the Imperial British empire in 1861) which considered gay sex “unnatural” or “against the order of nature” was debated and annulled for the first time by any court in the country....
MORE at http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/08/26/indias-lgbt-community-dares-to-hope-after-health-ministers-comment-on-gay-rights/