Homophobia - A Residue of British Colonial Rule

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At times I want to pull my hair out over the ignorance of those in Africa, India and now Singapore who claim that the acceptance of homosexuality is a western trait that threatens indigenous social mores.Why don't this homophobes have "I'm an ignorant cretin" tabooed on their foreheads?  The truth is that homophobia is a western import that traces back to British colonial rule.  As noted in treatise, The Origins and Roles of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies, opposition to same sex relations was low across the globe until the arrival of Christian missionaries.  Now, American Christofascists are working diligently (with corrupt politicians and parasitic churchmen) to follow in the footsteps of their equally bigoted ancestors and dupe local populations into embracing homophobia.  A piece in the Washington Post traces all of this back to British colonial rule.  Here are highlights:

During the past half-century, many countries have eliminated criminal laws against what are variously called “homosexual offences”, “sodomy,” “unnatural acts” or  other terms used to describe consensual sexual relations between people (often specifically men) of the same sex.

Yet, the decriminalization of homosexual conduct is an uneven process and several countries are moving in the opposite direction. 

Among such criminalization cases, a common narrative is that acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality is a foreign, or alien, Western imposition on indigenous cultures.  For example, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has called homosexuality an invention of the West that will “disturb the African moral fabric.”

Here stands one of the biggest ironies.  The idea that the so-called tolerance towards homosexuality somehow sprang from a western source doesn’t hold.  As our research shows, this narrative is not only wrong-headed but the opposite of the historical facts.  Instead, for many countries, including some of those mentioned above, criminalization laws were based on British imperial legal instruments, like the Indian Penal Code Section 377A, introduced and imposed on these countries by Britain when they were colonized.

We investigated whether and why there is variation in laws regulating and punishing homosexual conduct around the world.  Looking at a variety of data on 185 countries, we found that former British colonies are much more likely to have laws that criminalize homosexual conduct than former colonies of other European powers, or than other states in general. 

It seems that when the British Empire was introducing legal systems around the world, one of the laws they included was the law against sodomy, which was not decriminalized in England and Wales until 1967. By this time, most of the “Winds of Change” wave of decolonization had left former colonies independent of changes in British legislation.  By contrast, after the French Revolution, the French Empire decriminalized sodomy between consenting adults, and spread this Enlightenment legacy among its colonies.

Highlighting the colonial origin of anti-gay legislation is an important way to counter the narrative that tolerance of homosexuality is a neo-colonial imposition. . . . Another strategy is to publicize the numerous examples of accepted homosexual practices and relations in various pre-colonial African cultures.

 What is sad is that the original British colonials played upon the ignorance of native populations in introducing anti-gay laws.  Now, American Christofascists are engaging in the same toxic conduct.   As for leaders who claim to be rejecting foreign influence by enacting anti-gay laws, all they ultimately prove are they they are ignorant asses.  Are you listen, Mr. Putin?

Indian Government to Support Court Ruling Decriminalizing Gay Sex

In a positive sign that India is coming into the 21st century even while parts of the USA would prefer to remain in the 18th century - think Virginia - the Indian government has confirmed that it will not challenge the ruling by the Delhi High Court that struck down India's sodomy statute which dates back to the imperial days of the British Raj, The court previously ruled that the ban on homosexual acts between consenting adults violated India's constitution. Here are some highlights from The Advocate:

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According to a cabinet note obtained by the CNN-IBN network in India, the government decided not to contest the controversial ruling, which is being challenged in supreme court by antigay opponents including a popular yoga guru who claims that gay people can be “cured.”
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"The correctness of the Delhi high court judgment has been challenged in an appeal before the supreme court,” says the cabinet note. “The government may submit before the supreme court that there does not appear to be any legal error in the judgment and the supreme court may take a final view whether the judgment of the high court is legally correct."

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Government ministers also suggested that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed with their decision not to oppose the lower court’s ruling, according to CNN-IBN. Should the supreme court uphold the lower court’s groundbreaking ruling, the government will add an explanation to the sodomy law, Section 377 of the penal code, saying that it does not apply to consenting adults in private.

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Perhaps Bob McDonnell should read the analysis prepared by the Indian government so that he can hopefully better understand the concept of freedom of religion and separation of church and state.

Delhi High Court: Homosexuality is Not a Disease

The court battle in India over the repeal of Section 377 which criminalizes gay sex has been interesting to follow since the Court continues to rebuff the government's attempts and arguments to retain the penal code provision based on religious and non-legal justifications. Since the Court role is to adjudicate civil legal matters - not religious doctrine or beliefs - the Court is doing its job. Would that the government would do its job and cease acting as a de facto representative for religious factions. Here are some highlights from the Times of India:

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NEW DELHI: Irritated by the government's contradictory and unscientific stand on the issue of homosexuality, the Delhi High Court on Monday told the government that the homosexual trait in a human being cannot be termed as a "disease" and objected to the contention that if legalised, homosexuality would bring "devastation" to society. "Show us one report which says that it is a disease. A WHO [World Health Organization] paper says that it is not a disease but you are describing it as a disease."

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The Court was hearing a bunch of petitions filed by gay rights activists seeking decriminalisation of gay sex among consenting adults which, at present, is an offence. Section 377 of Indian Penal Code provides a punishment upto life imprisonment for indulging in gay sex. Continuing with its opposition the government described homosexuality as "a most indecent behaviour" in society, pointing out that homosexuals comprise just 0.3% of the population and the interest of rest 99.7% population "cannot be compromised" just to accommodate their rights.

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The Court, however, instructed him to "stick" to legal issues involved in the case and not raise political ones. Earlier, gay rights activists had contended that the government, by not decriminalising homosexuality, was infringing upon their fundamental right to equality on grounds of morality.

India High Court: Use Science, Not Rligion to Justify Gay Sex Ban’

Would that more courts in the USA would demand that proponents of anti-gay laws have to support their arguments with more than just religious beliefs and texts. That's what the Delhi High Court said on Wednesday to government officials who were trying to rely on religious texts to justify the penal code ban on gay sex. The Court told the government proponents to come up with scientific reports to justify the proposed continuance of the anti-gay ban. If the proponents of Proposition 8 had to deliver such evidence in support of their anti-gay efforts, the Proposition would be dead. Here are some highlights from the Times of India:

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Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar [chastised the government] for relying on religious texts to justify the prohibition on consensual sex between adults of same sex. "We won't be first country to decriminalise in case we do. Show us AIDS has spread where homosexuality has been decriminalised. Place some authentic study like one backed by UN," HC said.

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The court's remarks came when the additional solicitor general P P Malhotra cited an article condemning gay sex which was religious in nature and in which racial profiling had been done to arrive at conclusions. "We should not accept religious literature instead of scientific report. In a secular country how can a government rely on a report which says that certain races contribute more to homosexuality?," the bench remarked, adding, "These are not scientific reports. This is a propaganda. Your arguments should be based on scientific reports. Show us scientific reports which justify criminalisation of such acts."

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The National Aids Control Organisation, in its affidavit filed on behalf of Union health ministry, had said that gay sex among consenting adults should be decriminalised. The court observed that if the government goes by the religious text referred by it then all such people (homosexuals) in the country would be put behind the bars.

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Referring to Naco report, the court said that right to health is a fundamental right which cannot be denied to any one and the government has to justify criminalisation of gay sex which may pose health hazards to such people. "There is no doubt that they are high risk group, so you have to prove that allowing gay sex among consenting adults would increase the risk of HIV to an extent to criminalise it," the court said.