Abstinence has always been a strange concept. Right-wing nut jobs across religions promote it as a way to control the sex lives of young people. They do so by peddling abstinence as a preventive measure for sexually transmitted diseases (as if that is going to work?). The idea of abstinence has always failed to achieve its objective save once.
India abstained from voting in the UN about a landmark decision that would determine the course of how countries across the world treat their LGBT citizens. The vote was to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. This was India’s opportunity to showcase itself as a modern and compassionate nation, but WE BLEW it! India abstained from the vote!
Some people tell me to take comfort in knowing that at least India did not vote against LGBT people. But I say, by abstaining from the vote India is refusing to recognize our very existence and the fact that we are at the receiving end of the most vile of hate crimes. I would like to ask those people is this some kind of joke?
How can you abstain from voting against human rights violations? Since I am asked why don’t I take up more important causes than animals and gays, I will ask them back - how much more violence do you want to see against LGBT people until I get to finally vote yes in the UN? How many more Orlando do you want to witness until it appears to be a serious cause?
And don’t tell me to be happy with hand-me-over kind of consolation prizes. I mean, abstaining from voting is no better than not voting. Silence at such a moment is more deafening than the noise.
The PM is silent about LGBT rights, India abstains from voting in the UN, and in the meantime thousands of people in our country suffer silently. The stories that you will hear in the media are the only ones that you will hear. There are many submerged under layers and layers of hatred.
It reminded me a bit of the “un-persons” from George Orwell’s 1984. The thought sent shudders down my spine. I have seen this first hand. Every time my fellow activists and I take up issues that affect the LGBT community, we are shut out by people who tell us the country needs to focus on more important things like people dying of hunger, farmers committing suicide or soldiers dying at the border. I only have one question... am I not an Indian? Because all people are equal (or should be) before the law, why am I expendable? Why are my problems not worthy of a solution? Yes, I love men, and think, but why does that make my life less valuable?
As I write this I’m in the US where in a landmark judgment a US district court had made it legal for LGBT couples to adopt children. The Supreme Court has made marriage legal here irrespective of gender. I wanted so badly to tell all my new American friends that we Indians are also very progressive and sensitive. But India’s abstinence at the vote tells me that my country genuinely does not give a shit about me.
Now, before you point your guns at me for bad mouthing India, let me tell you for the Nth time that I know that it is not illegal to be gay in India. What’s illegal is engaging in sexual acts against the order of nature. So basically anal sex, oral sex (yeah, blow jobs are illegal) and even masturbation (using your hand as an artificial orifice) are against the law.
In that sense, this idiotic Section 377 affects even straight people. But it affects gay people more simply because straight people are always presumed to engage in “natural” sex. Nobody will enter your bedroom to see how you and your wife make love. But given anatomical similarities same sex couples are seen as having “unnatural” sex.
I feel let down by my government. You had one job and you blew it.