Eight Parties File Petition Agianst Decriminialisation of Being Gay in India

So far, about eight parties have filed petitions against the decriminalisation of homosexuality. If they were to unite, a rainbow-coloured banner, not unlike the flags waved about during queer marches, would be apposite. For they're a motley bunch of people from astrologers and politicians to priests and serial filers of public interest litigations. Most of them have predictable arguments against homosexuality: it's against the order of nature, it's a nasty foreign habit, it's bound to plunge India into a moral apocalypse and so on. One of the petitioners is the Apostolic Churches Alliance, which its general overseer Sam Varghese described as an "alliance of Christian independent churches''. Varghese is the pastor at Life Fellowship, a church in Trivandrum. According to him, homosexuals, who practice a "perversion of god's order'' are not immutable. "They can be made straight,'' he said. "God can help them. We are willing to help them.'' He added that he knows of men who have been helped to overcome their temporary deviance to lead "normal, married'' lives. "We love them as god loves them,'' he asserted. There's no love lost between queer folk and Bhim Singh, chairman of the Jammu & Kashmir National Panthers Party. Why is a party committed to reuniting Kashmir with its Pakistani sibling bothering with 377? "I am heading a political party,'' Singh blustered. "I have a responsibility towards my people in general. I cannot allow two judges or politicians to mislead as far as human morality is concerned. This is an American invasion.'' But homosexuality has been around in the subcontinent centuries before America came into being. "Everything is going on for centuries,'' he argued. "Will you recognise murder as legitimate?'' Full Story from the Times of India

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