Religious groups in India have warned they will…

Religious groups in India have warned they will oppose any move to legalize homosexuality as the federal government prepares to hold talks on a law that classifies same-sex acts as crimes.

India’s Hindu nationalist main opposition has in the meantime called for a national debate on the legislation that law minister M. Veerappa Moily last week said would come up for a discussion within the government.

“This is a sensitive issue and warrants a debate within the Indian society at large before arriving at any decision,” said Sidharth Nath Singh, spokesman for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

An Indian court is due to give its judgment on a petition filed by a nonprofit group that has challenged the anti-gay provision of the penal code.

In a news conference last week, Moily refused to spell out his government’s stand on it because it awaits judicial determination. But his comments that the federal home minister was “contemplating” a meeting with his Cabinet colleagues on the law drew widespread coverage in the largely conservative country.

“Hope floats at rainbow parades,” read a caption on a front-page picture from a gay parade in New Delhi in Monday’s Times of India newspaper.

Participants in that march demanded repeal of Section 377 of the penal code, which criminalizes private consensual sex between adults of the same gender in the country. Watch a New Delhi march in support of gay rights »

Religious leaders, however, oppose any suggestion to scrap 377, describing homosexuality as “unnatural.”

“We are against calling homosexuality a criminal activity, but we are certainly in principle against legalizing it, because that would mean the state endorsing same-sex relationships,” said Babu Joseph, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.

Homosexuality “violates fundamental norms of a family,” he said.

See India faith leaders: Anti-gay law must stay CNN International

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India’s PM to take view on decriminalising gay sex

NEW DELHI: After the Delhi High Court’s landmark verdict decriminalising gay sex, the matter is now in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s court – on whether to amend the archaic law dealing with the issue.

Home minister P Chidambaram along with his cabinet colleagues law minister Veerappa Moily and health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday held meeting to analyse Delhi High Court’s judgement decriminalising same gender sex.

Emerging out of the half-an-hour long meeting held at North Block, Moily said the trio will submit their report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“We met today and analysed the judgment and will submit our report to the Prime Minister,” he said.
See India’s PM to take view on decriminalising gay sex

Times of India

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