It's about Love

In December 2013, the Supreme Court of India recriminalised homosexuality and turned the clock back three years. It overturned the Delhi High Court ruling of 2009 in support of LGBT rights (which was a truly sane, just and far-reaching step if you ask me) - a ruling that had given hope to many in the LGBT community to come out of the closet and feel safe.  My respect for the highest court of the land has evaporated quickly at this blatant denial of basic human rights.
I have begun to be more and more certain that the larger social problems in our country (and perhaps the world) always boil down to certain individual personality defects to be found in these decision making groups. The only explanation to the above mentioned Supreme Court absurdity is homophobia – a fear of same-sex partnerships.

I chanced upon a very nicely made BBC documentary recently called ‘Out There’, that explores the lives of LGBT people all over the world, studying their lives, how they are viewed, accepted and in many cases, prosecuted. I highly recommend watching it. It sheds a lot of light on the main fears of homophobes the world over. No bias is harmless. Anti-Semitism, though baseless, gave rise to the Holocaust. Underestimating homophobia can lead to mass prosecution of innocent people, and in today’s day and age, it would be an enormous, unforgivable shame if we were to allow that to happen.

While homophobia has many forms, these few points below usually form the basis of all arguments against homosexuality.

Homosexuality is unnatural / created by modern culture:

Both untrue. Many species in nature exhibit homosexual behaviour. It is not recent either… there are records from ancient India which look at this behaviour in a more holistic way (read more here). Ideas of unnaturalness and immorality have come to India from colonial Britain (and the law that the SC upholds is of their making). Either way, it is not a good enough reason to make it criminal. Plastic is both unnatural and modern – can we then pass a law making all plastic users criminals?

Homosexuality may involve addiction, violence and power:

Correction – All relationships may involve addiction, violence and power. And of course that is wrong. We want healthy, happy people everywhere and if something stops that from happening, we must take the required measures. If there is substance abuse, we need therapy and rehabilitation. If there is violence and crime, we need medical care, prosecution and rehabilitation. In fact, let me add, if there are medical reasons against homosexual practices, by all means let there be awareness and healthcare options, just like with heterosexual practices.

Our country is riddled with injustice and bias in every sphere. We are all guilty of wronging each other, based on caste, region, background, sex, disability. It is always wrong, no matter who does it. Singling a community out doesn’t help.

Homosexuality may spread and threaten ‘normal’ relationships:

There is an idea that the LGBT community ‘recruits’ people to be like them, that if such behaviour expands it is a threat to reproduction and that human population will fall. Even as I type this, the ludicrousness of the idea makes me chuckle. I don’t quite see eye to eye with the fears of declining population (atleast speaking for my 1.2 billion strong India). As for the ‘recruiting’, if the mass of heterosexual movies, drama, literature, poetry constantly bombarded on gay individuals does not change their inner feelings, how can a small group influence the majority? In fact, this idea comes more from people who reduce this love to sex. They disregard all the gentleness, trust, companionship and respect that is part of all relationships and focus on the physical act.

Most gay people stress again and again that what ‘normal’ people do not get is that it’s about love. I agree that it is something one may not understand. I admit I do not fully understand it yet myself, but the only sane solution to that is to observe it more deeply. Suppressing and punishing, I’m afraid, will just make it worse. And love is mysterious enough, even in its most ‘normal’ form! 

But there are ways for us to feel and understand what such relationships can be (and often are) about. Literature, music, films and art open windows of empathy into worlds and feelings unknown to us. And it is always true that the weakest of us are represented least.

There are very few sensitive films about the subject I have come across - Wilde and Birdcage come to mind. Birdcage is one of the gentlest, most hilarious but endearing movies I have seen on the subject, tickling you innocently as it delves subtly into the deeper personalities of the characters, while Wilde is the more intense, darker and sadder one, with the protagonist (the 19^th century author and poet Oscar Wilde) struggling with ideas of Victorian morality and his own innate sense of what is good and noble.

Author Vikram Seth penned down the poem below after the SC’s disappointing stand (and it is free for anybody to share or use).

Through love's great power to be made whole
In mind and body, heart and soul -
Through freedom to find joy, or be
By dint of joy itself set free
In love and in companionhood:
This is the true and natural good.
To undo justice, and to seek
To quash the rights that guard the weak - 
To sneer at love, and wrench apart
The bonds of body, mind and heart
With specious reason and no rhyme:
This is the true unnatural crime.

And yet, this is difficult for many to understand. As Stephen Fry says in ‘Out There’, “It’s extra-ordinary to think that after two hundred thousand years on the planet, humankind is still struggling with how some of us love”