Bonny, and Blithe, and Good, and Gay

So India finally had its first major step in bringing homosexuals back to the community - decriminalizing their existence.

That was a pretty harsh step - condemning gayness to the point where it was actually a crime. It was an archaic and idiotic law at that time, and it is even more so today. Imagine the horror of having your existence labelled a crime, and for something that's actually a personal matter - the matter of who you fall in love with.

People who have opposed homosexuality usually have one of four particular reasons to oppose it: either that it is not permitted by religion, or that it could have adverse consequences for society (in terms of demographics), or that it involves 'unnatural' thinking or behaviour, or that it would lead to higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) amongst the existing population.

I find all these reasons weird.

The argument of religion is perhaps the most ridiculous. The idea of religion determining the validity of one's sexual orientation is most horrendous, for all the good reasons that atheists proclaim aloud all the time. It is rather alarming, to find that your entire social and moral structure is dictated by a belief system, which rather than being all-encompassing and tolerant, instead preaches the "righteousness" of only one set group of attributes in people, and condemns the rest. I would not, for one minute, accept any religion that effectively said that a certain denomination of people must be discriminated against; neither would I accept the preachings or claims of any so-called spiritual or religious or moral teacher who said so. If there is a divine being which created everything, then homosexuals were created by that same being, hence there is no call to treat them lesser than heterosexuals. If there never was any divine being, it doesn't change things, because everyone is still born with the rights of equality and freedom.

Another common argument is the fact that homosexuality could lead to a "breakdown in the fabric of society". What kind of breakdown are these people talking about? Any child which is raised in the home of a loving, honest, upright, caring family is likely to imbibe those attributes as well. How does it matter whether that family is two men, or two women, or a man and a woman? A child needs a safe, happy home to live in. A large number of children come from different kinds of families. There are children who have lost one parent, children who have lost both parents, children who have divorced parents, children who have been adopted, by either single parents or couples, children who have been adopted alongside natural children, children who have step-parents and step-siblings, resulting from extension of a few of the situations above, and so on. Even with the differing conditions, these children can be happy, if they have a happy and loving home atmosphere. Why should children with homosexual parents be any different?

One more objection is that homosexual tendencies are "unnatural". This sentiment reeks of bigotry. If someone is different, either actively or passively, that does not mean that they are criminals. If you think someone is unnatural for not thinking or acting the way you do, that means the other person has the right to think the same way about you. Sexual orientation is moreover, a private matter, that has no direct bearing on anyone except each individual for himself/herself. There is no call for anyone to go about labelling anyone else's sexual bent "unnatural".

Some people use the unnatural tag with the argument that children can be born naturally only to a man and a woman together, thus it is unnatural for any other liaison to exist. But how does it matter? Gay couples can always adopt children, apart from using one partner's sperm with donated ova, together with help from a surrogate mother. Lesbian couples have an added advantage in only needing the sperm, since either partner can herself become a mother. Infertility treatments allow for the conception of children by couples who couldn't normally have them. Isn't that going against the "law of nature"? But nobody in their senses would oppose the use of such treatments to have children, so how does this particular argument justify going against homosexuality?

The last problem - the one of spread of STDs - is a legitimate concern. But again, there are no grounds for condemning homosexuality, because the latter is not the only reason for spread of STDs. Unsafe sexual practices are followed by hundreds of people, heterosexual or not, often unknowingly. Those who know, often don't care until it's too late. Open any personal column or sex advice column in any magazine, and you will read plenty of cases about boys who visit prostitutes to "check their virility", about people who indulge in unprotected sex with partners and later realize that they know nothing about their partner's sexual habits or history, and about people who don't even understand the concept of protection, either against pregnancy or against STDs, much less know any level of detail about how various forms of protection work.

A lot of people don't know that there are STDs apart from AIDS, and many people live under the delusion that AIDS spreads mainly (or only) due to homosexual contact. Thanks to this state of affairs, and the equally dismal level of basic sexual education in the country, STDs are spreading at exponential levels, and instead of fostering sexual education and promoting safe practices and preventive procedures, people are instead attacking homosexuality as the cause.

Some basic sex education needs to be provided to teenagers at the right stages of life. After all, would it not be much better to arm adolescents with correct information and equip them to make good choices, rather than let them find out a whole motley bunch of mistruths on their own? Sex education is a separate issue on its own. People would rather not have any sex ed given to their children, for fear of encouraging experimentation in "evil practices" (of which they consider homosexuality is one). Unfortunately, in an age when information of every kind, true and untrue, is available at one's fingertips, unless active steps are taken to combat misinformation, things are likely to go down the drain.

And meanwhile, the issue of homosexuality stands on its own. Some progress is apparently being made in recent years; some homosexual marriages have been solemnized, by religious priests, and the parents of those couples have been accepting of the situation. There may be many more couples in nooks and corners in the country, quietly living their lives, keeping their secret. With at least their existence now no longer criminal in the eyes of the law, there may now come about a slow social revolution, culminating in a fairer quality of life for a significant part of the human populace.

Read A Book Daily...

I'm a condemned person for some time now. I'm about to jump off a precipice and find out whether all the effort I've put into designing and building my wings is going to work, because now I have to fly...

But there's still time to jump off that precipice. I have to find a landowner who's willing to let me use his property for my take-off.

And in the meanwhile I've to wait. So what do I do?

I read a book daily.

I've harboured this idea for a long time - I want my own library. A huge cupboard full of books, all neatly categorized, covered with good newspaper to protect the delicate covers from scratches and brutal treatment, and looking beautiful and inviting. I go crazy every time I go to a bookstore. I can't resist the temptation to buy just one more book, one more beautiful piece of writing, and my heart breaks every time I see the prices. I often soothe that wound by buying a Penguin classic that I don't already have - it's a bargain, seriously. You get a nice classic for just around one hundred rupees, and it's a good book to add to the collection. Penguin has its own taste in selecting books to publish, and it's taste matches with my own, and the best part is, my taste isn't confined to just one type of literature.

And now there's a new form of entertainment. It's called thin-slicing, the concept for which you should thank this young man. You get to read the first chapter of a book totally free, and from that, you must thin-slice and make out whether you'd like to buy the book or not. It's a great way to find out about books. And it makes for great recreation too.

Heh heh, you can let your imagination soar about the chapters you read too.

I've decided to read a book daily. Not just the actual paper that I can clasp in my hands, hold up to my face and smell deeply, write my name on and declare my ownership of, but also a trial run for all these new books by all these various authors, which I might probably not even see in my local bookstore.

It's probably also good to have a way to evaluate the books without the danger of falling to the temptation to buy them, which is likely to happen in an actual bookstore.

I can't help it, the atmosphere is just too tempting!