New Delhi, May 25: Unable to come out in the open
most of the times about their sexual orientation, thousands of
homosexual youngsters are now turning to popular networking
sites to get heard and evolve a social consensus for their
rights.
Online social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook
and Myspace are getting flooded with hundreds of communities
advocating "natural rights" of gays and lesbians and inviting
"like-minded people" to pour out their views and emotions with
anonymity.
Forums like Indian Gay Liberation Movement, glad to be
gay, anti-homophobia (India) and support gay rights are among
hundreds others, which are actively discussing several
problems being faced by the homosexuals.
The clamour for the gay rights has resurfaced after
the Union Home Ministry had contended in the Delhi High Court
that by treating homosexuality as a criminal offence, the
government is protecting public health and morals.
"Indian society strongly disapproves of homosexuality
and the disapproval is strong enough to justify it being
treated as a criminal offence," it has said.
The argument was made in response to a PIL demanding
changes in section 377 of IPC which makes all types of
unnatural sex a punishable offence.
The contention has triggered furious responses from the
homosexuals and right activists, mainly through social
networking websites and blogs, terming it as "arbitrary and
illogical."
Terming the government's stand as "detrimental to
the very spirit of the constitutional right of equality," a
gay right activist, Aditya Bandhopadhyay, said that government
is keener in protecting a rule made by the Britishers
nearly 150 years back while ignoring the fundamental right of
equality.
"Internet has proved very helpful in creating awareness
about homosexuality as a natural behaviour and in protecting
the rights of those having a such sexual orientation.
Networking websites are helping in generating a national
response to the problem," added Bandhopadhyay, also a legal
consultant.
Twenty one-year old Nipun from Indore, leading an Orkut
forum Indian Gay Liberation Movement, says in his online
profile, "Social networking sites and blogs have been a
wonderful forum for me to reach out to a large number of
people with my views in the issue of gay rights."
His community on popular networking site put forward a
three-pronged demand - replacement of section 377 of IPC,
making discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation a
criminal offence and approval for the gay marriages in the
country.
However, in a respite to the community, the National
Aids Control Organisation (NACO), which comes under ministry
of health, has said that the law has to go because it impair
controlling the HIV infection.
Highlighting the vulnerability of homosexuals to HIV
infection, the NACO has said there were around 25 lakh male
homosexuals and around eight percent of them were infected
with HIV while in normal people it is only one per cent, an
affidavit by NACO has said.
Bureau Report