Gay talks

The country or at least the urban, newspaper-reading, facebook-using section of it has been consumed with discussions on homosexuality since the past few days.

The very fact that national newspapers are carrying headlines on it means that the term and the action it speaks about has found its way into living rooms all over this country. And that I believe is the 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' kind of thing taking place right under our noses. Who knew we could speak out openly about sex of any kind, forget gay sex.

On the other hand, the BJP, in a bid to retain the support of their traditional, staunch religious supporter base, and most probably the RSS, have proclaimed gay sex to be 'unnatural' and something they can't support.

I have a few things to say on the matter -

- The BJP should ensure all of its talking is done by its spokespeople and not by random juvenile and absurd members like Baba Ramdev and Subramanian Swamy. The fact that these people are occupying key positions in the BJP and are allowed to speak unfettered does not bode well for the iQ of the party as a whole or their competence (at managing their public image and their people). These glaring flaws would be more than enough reason for us folks to not vote for them, howmuchever Modi shouts from the roof-tops and tries to woo us with his silver-tongued talks on progress.

- Coming to the stand the party has taken: it is antiquated, un-researched and logic-defying. To make one of the many possible arguments against homosexual sex being unnatural - one fact is that it is hugely prevalent in the animal kingdom, around 1500 species have been known to depict homosexual behavior; in fact this was one of the reasons behind the landmark decision taken by the United States Supreme Court in 2003, which made same sex activity legal across all states in the US. Secondly, people are born with this orientation, feel it from within, as natural as being born with one hand more dexterous than the other, as Kanishka Sinha explains here. So how can it be unnatural? Thirdly, even if the first and the second were untrue, and people decided to have homosexual sex to add variety to their sex lives, out of curiosity, or any other reason, with other consenting adults, in the privacy of their homes, then who is the State to tell them that they can't?

- Allowing for the fact that the BJP stance is a poll strategy and they don't want to alienate their voter base (Subramanian Swamy keeps repeating that 84% of the people of this nation are against homosexuality - a statistic I don't see any basis for), I think they are misreading the situation. Not all of the traditional, middle class, slightly older demographic is dogmatically against homosexuality. They are being exposed today in an unprecedented manner to media - fiction and celebrities - and actual people who represent this reality, and are warming up to the notion of it. While they still may have great difficultly in accepting it in their own children, they certainly don't see it as criminal behavior or a disease. Admittedly there is still huge progress to be made, but things aren't so bad that a party which supports the fundamental rights of a different-but-harmless minority will automatically find itself out of favor with this demographic. In fact to the contrary, a party which insists on mouthing silly and neanderthal speech like the kind the BJP has been, stands to lose favor among the educated and rational section of the population. Much as I dislike the Congress, it is admirable that they have come out unequivocally against the article.

- The Supreme court may be making a statement and compelling our parties to take sides, reveal their strategies, show how committed they are to minority issues, etc, which is all good. But once it becomes apparent that no legislation change on this issue will be possible, given how divided the parties are, they should step in and take a judicial recourse. In this country, with these sort of gutless/coalition politics being played and practiced, a change such as this has to come from an extra-legislative body.

The times they are a-changing. And a party which has made progress its poll proposition but does not walk the talk, will learn that lesson a very hard way. A party which can't promise freedom to every one of its citizens can certainly never deliver progress.