FACE THE NATION
Font Size 
FTN: Religious heads' straight take: gays are immoral
Published on Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 07:19, Updated on Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 09:49 in India section
Tags: Face The Nation, Homosexuality
Related Stories
Photogallery
 |  |
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notices to the Centre, the Delhi government and an NGO on a petition challenging the Delhi High Court's ruling legalising gay sex among consenting adults. The High Court had on July 2 struck down a law, which criminalises gay sex terming it an “unnatural offence”. Of all major political groupings, only the Communist Party of India-Marxist has welcomed the court order.
Religious leaders of all faiths have also united against legalising homosexuality. On Thursday, a Hindu Shankaracharya, a Jamaat-e-Islami cleric, Delhi's Catholic Bishop and a Jain muni held a press conference where they described gay sex as immoral, unnatural, and alien to Indian society, culture, tradition and religious ethos.
The question that was asked on CNN-IBN’s Face The Nation was: Does religion forbid homosexuality?
To try and answer the question on the panel of experts were: Sabarimala Temple spokesperson Rahul Easwar; Managing Partner, Counselage Suhel Seth; Jamaat-e-Islami Hind President Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umri and cultural commentator and journalist S Kalidas.
At the start of the show, 53 per cent of those who voted in said yes, religion does forbid homosexuality while 47 per cent disagreed.
Sexual rights = Human rights
The Delhi HC in its order had said that the amendment is in consonance with Article 14, 21 and according to the freedom available in Constitution of India. So people might have different religious point of views but at the end of the day it is the Constitution which matters in a country.
Taking this point forward Easwar said that 100 years ago it was good to talk about religion and ethics and bad to talk about sex but today it is good to talk about sex. India has come a long way.
He emphasised that sexuality has nothing to do with religion and therefore it shouldn’t be taken up as a religious matter and also said that whether homosexuality is inborn and natural is yet to be confirmed by the science.
Kalidas also said that Delhi HC order in no way talked about religion because as a secular society we are not guided by any religion. He also told that in Hinduism there are stories about same sex relationships and following Hindu’s Bhakti Movement even Sufi tradition has instances of same sex relationships.
[ Single Page View ]
| Ads by Google |
| Related Ads: | |
Read Comment | Post Comment
Religion seems to be obsessed with sex and what somebody does in his private life. These Iron age thoughts and
Read Comment
The question here is whether homosexuality is to be accepted as a lifestyle or acceptable behavior. Let me state that
Read Comment
Note: It will take courage to read this article, people weak in some ways are advised to skip it.
Read Comment
I am imprssed by the post. however as rightly said \"Human development is very complex\" so lets not try to
Read Comment
No one is GAY or straight by choice. One must understand that this is internal feeling and should not be
Read Comment
Read more comment »