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发帖数: 4174 | 1 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/india-gay-sex-legal_n_
NEW DELHI (AP) — The Indian government Tuesday clarified to the Supreme
Court that it accepts a recent ruling legalizing gay sex in the country.
A lawyer told the Supreme Court that the government would not challenge a
2009 order by the Delhi High Court striking down a colonial-era law that
made gay sex a crime.
The order was appealed by conservative groups and the Supreme Court is now
hearing opinions from those groups as well as gay rights activists.
The latest statement comes days after another government lawyer told the
court that gay sex was "highly immoral" and should be banned. The government
quickly denied that lawyer's statement, prompting confusion about its
stance on the law.
On Tuesday, a Supreme Court justice asked the government's lawyers to file
an affidavit to reconcile the two divergent positions heard in court.
Neither lawyer explained Thursday's confusion.
The 2009 high court order had said that treating consensual gay sex between
adults as a crime was a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's
constitution.
Sex between people of the same gender had been illegal in India since the
1860s, when a British colonial law classified it as "against the order of
nature."
Prosecutions were rare, but the law was used frequently to harass people.
Over the last decade, homosexuals have slowly gained a degree of acceptance
in some parts of India, especially its big cities. The last two years have
also seen large gay pride parades in New Delhi and other big cities,
including Mumbai and Kolkata.
Still, being gay remains deeply taboo in most of the country, and many gays
and lesbians hide their sexual orientation from friends and relatives. |
