India declares Gay Homosexual sex as legal - Vice News

Published: 05 Sep 2018 · Uploaded: 06 Sep 2018
6356 views · Last viewed: 18 mins ago · Watch on Youtube 4:12

TAGS HOMOSEXUAL (76) GAY (25) VICE NEWS (25)

LOT

Video Description (from Youtube)

Gay sex is legal in India. That was the judgement of the the Supreme Court in New Delhi Thursday, which struck down a colonial-era law that banned homosexual acts with the threat of prison. The ruling sparked jubilant scenes across the country, the culmination of a decades-long struggle for India’s LGBTQ movement.

The landmark ruling from the five judge bench overturned the 157-year-old law known as Section 377, which banned sex “against the order of nature.”

The court ruled unanimously that the law amounted to discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and constituted a fundamental violation of rights.

“Sexual orientation is one of the many natural phenomena,” said Chief Justice Dipak Misra in his decision. “Any discrimination on basis of sexual orientation amounts to violation of fundamental rights.”

“Criminalizing carnal intercourse is irrational, arbitrary and manifestly unconstitutional."

The ruling represents a long-awaited victory for the LGBTQ community, which has waged a tortuous battle to legalize homosexuality in recent decades. Cases were filed to repeal the law in 1994 and 2001, before the Delhi High Court finally ruled in favor of decriminalization within its jurisdiction in 2009.

But conservative religious and political groups immediately pushed back, lobbying for the law to be restored; in 2013 the Supreme Court unexpectedly overturned the earlier judgment.

The 2013 ruling stated that because Section 377 had been used so infrequently, and because only a “minuscule fraction of the country's population constitute lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgenders,” the law couldn’t be considered to violate Indians’ constitutional rights and it was therefore “legally unsustainable” to repeal it.

That reasoning baffled and dismayed LGBTQ activists, who filed a petition to overturn the decision, resulting in Thursday’s judgment — which represents the final say in the matter.

Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News

Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com

Follow VICE News here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicenews
Tumblr: http://vicenews.tumblr.com/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/vicenews
More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideo

DISCLAIMER
All videos are for educational purposes only. All videos remain hosted on Youtube and are shared on this page. The video title is derived from: (1) the original Youtube video title, (2) the video content, (3) dialogue and speech in the video, and (4) the overall content. The video title does not represent the views of any individual, speaker, organisation or business. Video titles are edited and optimized for SEO, keyword density, clarity of information and internal/external search purposes.

If you spot any mistake, omission or to report abuse, kindly Contact Us with details.

Upload Video Contact Us Report

25 Videos with 'Gay'