India's Supreme Court on Thursday
struck down the nation's ban on same-sex relations.
According to The New York Times,
Chief Justice Dipak Misra described the law, known as Section 377 of
the Indian penal code, as “irrational, indefensible and manifestly
arbitrary.” The decision was unanimous.
The British colonial-era law
criminalized sexual behavior “against the order of nature.”
Violators faced up to ten years in prison.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC),
America's largest LGBT rights advocate, cheered the ruling.
“This monumental decision by India's
Supreme Court finally ends a deeply discriminatory law that violated
the dignity and most fundamental rights of LGBTQ people in India,”
said HRC Global Director Ty Cobb.
The law was first struck down in 2009
by the Delhi High Court of India. But in 2013, India's Supreme Court
threw out the lower court's ruling, saying that only lawmakers could
change the law.
A group of LGBT citizens petitioned the
court to reconsider its earlier decision with a larger panel of
judges. Plaintiffs argued that the law violates a person's right to
privacy.
Jessica Stern, executive director of
OutRight Action International, explained that the decision would have
implications beyond India.
“When you work on LGBTIQ rights at an
international level, your work constantly leads you back to
colonialism and the penal codes that were imposed globally as
instruments of control and domination,” Stern said in a statement.
“The sodomy law that became the model everywhere from Uganda to
Singapore to the UK itself premiered in India, becoming the confusing
and dehumanizing standard replicated around the world. Today’s
decision to strike down the 377 law once and for all is a triumph. It
is the culmination of years of community organizing, changing social
attitudes, strategic use of the courts, and an LGBITQ movement in
India that refused to give up. The decision decriminalizes
homosexuality in India and also affirms the rights to privacy and
non-discrimination. Today's historic outcome will reverberate across
India and the world.”