The Pulse

India’s LGBT Community is Not Alone in Protesting Court’s Anti-Gay Sex Ruling

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The Pulse

India’s LGBT Community is Not Alone in Protesting Court’s Anti-Gay Sex Ruling

The Diplomat‘s Sanjay Kumar reports from New Delhi.

India’s LGBT Community is Not Alone in Protesting Court’s Anti-Gay Sex Ruling
Credit: Sanjay Kumar for The Diplomat

Raveena and Rohit stood quietly at one corner of the protest venue, unlike their other friends who shouted slogans. Some of Rohit’s friends tried to coax them to join the chorus but they were not keen to join them. Their mood on Wednesday evening was completely transformed from that morning when they were on the Supreme Court’s lawn in New Delhi, where they were involved in an animated conversation with other gay and lesbian activists waiting for the landmark verdict from the apex court on whether Section 377 criminalizes same sex alliances or not.

But the highest court’s judgement on Wednesday morning, that gay sex would remain illegal in India, came as a huge setback for Raveena and Rohit who were planning to legalize their relationship. The Supreme Court overturned a four-year-old judgement of the Delhi High Court that legalized same-sex marriage in 2009. With new decision India has once again criminalized gay sex under Section 377. The verdict means that Raveena and Rohit as well as many others cannot think of settling down as a couple and if they do so they might be sent to jail for ten years and possibly for life in some cases.

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