India wants a rainbow flag
The Supreme Court of India recently initiated a new process to revise the law that penalizes acts erroneously considered ‘against nature’ and criminalizes relations between persons of the same sex, or homosexuals. It is a cause that could end with the decriminalization of homosexuality in the Asian country, where religious beliefs strongly condemn that practice.
The proposal was presented before the Supreme Court, in a room composed of five magistrates and headed by Dipak Misra, president of the highest judicial body. The first session of the procedure began a few days ago, through which an old sentence that criminalizes homosexual relations will be reviewed.
It is worth noting that, in that ruling, which dates from 2013, the Supreme Body ratified the validity of Article 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which establishes prison sentences for "anyone who voluntarily has carnal relations against the order of nature." The norm is based on an old British law established in the Victorian era, which means it has almost 150 years old, which had previously been knocked down by the Superior Court of New Delhi in 2009 when it was considered unconstitutional.
During the session different lawyers in defense of the rights of the LGBT collective presented their arguments before the members of the Supreme Court to demonstrate that article 377 is opposed to the Constitution and the basic rights of the men and women who belong to that community. Vivek Anand, director of the NGO in defense of the LGTB collective called 'The Humsafar Trust', told international media that he and his team feel positive because the arguments before the court are being very hard, so they believe they will win.
One of the key points is the performance of Judge DYChandrachud, one of the five magistrates of the courtroom, who delivered the ruling of the Supreme Court a few months ago in which privacy was declared a fundamental right of citizens and sexual orientation as a essential attribute of privacy.
Although the hearing lasted a couple of days, the final verdict could take two or three months. For its part, the LGTB group has the recent support in addition to the Psychiatric Society of India, which also spoke in favor of the decriminalization of homosexuality and denied that this sexual orientation is a psychiatric disorder, as is believed, they consider it a normal variant of human sexuality, such as heterosexuality and bisexuality.
