Showing posts with label Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Section 377 of Indian Penal Code Supreme Court Ruling Exposing Ignorance, Racism

India's Supreme Court Ruling Continues British Raj Era's LGBT Discrimination ; American Reaction Turns Ugly

Following today's controversial Indian Supreme Court's ruling to recriminalise homosexuality, the reaction on some American-based Web sites has revealed cultural and historical incompetencies by the West of the East.

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises homosexuality, was enacted in 1860 by the British Raj, the former colonial rulers of India. "Enacted" is a relative term, because the law was basically imposed on India the way British colonists imposed everything else on Indians. Because British rule lasted from 1858 to 1947, and the culture and values of modern India are still informed by the shadow of injustice and discrimination that marked British colonial rule, including lingering laws on India's books. Also note that the inception of the epoch of British Raj overlapped with British Victorian Era, a period of extremely conservative moral values.

When news broke about the Indian Supreme Court's ruling on Section 377, people with no knowledge of India's history instantly reached for charicatured generalisations of Indian culture based on stereotypes of IT tech support and call centers.

"India's Supreme Court rules Gay Sex illegal ... it's time to pull out of that shithole .. bring Tech Support back on-shore," wrote one prominent LGBT activist on Facebook.

On the popular LGBT blog named Joe My God, one commenter wrote, "we need to get a list of all companies using call centers based in india. and boycott indian restaurants. they use a lot of products coming straight from their homeland." (India Court Recriminalizes Homosexuality * Joe My God)

A Facebook follower of Joe Jervis, the author of the Joe My God blog, commented on Facebook that, "The tech companies and the Queen of England should weigh in on this." Never mind that there are companies in India other than "tech," and India endured a violent partition once it was liberated from British rule. Even though the Queen of England has no more power or authority over India's governance, this one comment had attracted four Facebook "likes."

Another commenter on the Joe My God blog wrote, "I wonder how many of the corporate sponsors of the Sochi Olympics have call centers in India?" While presumably the author of this comment was trying to find an intersectional-political pressure point between the violent crackdown against LGBT Russians and the Indian Supreme Court's disappointing ruling, it's notable that the commenter's focus was, again, a call center.

On another popular LGBT blog, Towleroad, the very first commenter posted this reaction to the Indian Supreme Court's ruling : "If you use a call center that is based in India then contact the company that subcontracts their call center to India and ask to use a non-Indian call-center." Another commenter on Towleroad posted, "Does anyone have a list of US companies who subcontract their helpdesks and call centers to India." (In Shocking Ruling, India's Supreme Court Restores Criminalisation of Gay Sex * Towleroad)

These harmful, divisive stereotypes contrast with an article posted by Cathy Kristofferson on OBlogDeeOBlogDa, where she wrote : "India is one of the many countries in the world still suffering with a left over British colonial penal code criminalizing homosexuality."

And the hurtful generalisations about India also ignore the very visible and organized opposition and protests taking place in India against the Supreme Court's "retrograde" ruling.

Another indication of uninformed reaction to the Indian Supreme Court's decision was that in the long string of organising, litigation, and politicking for LGBT civil rights right here at home, American LGBT's were dealt a major setback in 1986 with the SCOTUS decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, which upheld the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws in the state of Georgia. It took 17 years before the SCOTUS overturned Bowers with the Lawrence v. Texas decision. During that time, were Indians calling for a boycott of McDonalds ?

Many prominent Indians are even denouncing their own Supreme Court's adversarial decision, including famous Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, but Americans, who are uninformed of Indian culture, would not know the full spectrum of debate taking place in India right now, sometimes highly conflicted. How can one have a meaningful debate to change the hearts and minds of people, to ask them to make room for equal rights for everybody, when one first resorts to unfairly categorizing Indians as a way to assign blame for a Supreme Court ruling that frustrates the march to equality ?

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

David Kato : Vigil and March in NYC to Demand Hate Crimes Investigation

NYC vigil and march in memory of David Kato on Thursday, February 3

Last Wednesday, Ugandan gay activist David Kato was beaten to death in a brutal hate crime. Even after David was deliberately marked as a target in a newspaper’s controversial campaign that called for gays to be executed, police in Uganda are refusing to investigate David’s suspicious murder as an act of homophobia.

Here in New York, the LGBT community and our allies are outraged at the continuation of human rights violations against David, even after his death, and against LGBT people everywhere.  We invite all New Yorkers to participate in a vigil and march on Thursday, February 3.

For more information about the vigil and march, please visit the Facebook page. The vigil will begin at 4 pm at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (885 Second Avenue), and, from there, mourners will begin a march that will pass in front of the United Nations Headquarters and end at the Uganda Mission to the United Nations (336 East 45th Street).

Date : Thursday, February 3, 2011
Start Time : 4 p.m.
Meeting Place : 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (885 Second Avenue), New York City
Please Bring : Signs and Banners to remember David Kato

David’s life work was to courageously fight for the human rights of LGBT people in Uganda. In the time leading up to his murder, David had been working to defeat the widely controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda.  Under the proposed bill, some LGBT people would become subject to the death penalty.  In David’s name, we demand that the Ugandan government abandon this bill.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced in the Ugandan Parliament by David Bahati, who is associated with ‘’The Family,’’ a fringe group of right-wing politicians and businessmen, who inject their fundamentalist beliefs into government matters, including civil rights and reproductive freedoms. Mr. Bahati reportedly first proposed the idea of executing gays during The Family's Uganda National Prayer Breakfast in 2008.

We stand up to the bigotry of and interference by groups, like The Family. We also join others in calling for the Ugandan government to recognize LGBT equality as a universal human right, to fully investigate all hate crimes, and to take action against institutions, which create campaigns that are only meant to incite discrimination and violence against LGBT people.

The campaign against LGBT Ugandans was being lead by other social and cultural institutions, including the media. It is unacceptable that a newspaper would publish a list of LGBT people and mark them as targets for death. As we hold our vigil and march near the United Nations, we also ask the U.N. to continue to put pressure on the Ugandan government to thoroughly investigate David’s killing, as well as to investigate and prosecute any institution, which is responsible for advocating for the execution, discrimination, or harassment of LGBT people.

We ask everyone to join us in this vigil to demand that all cultural- and government-sanctioned discrimination and violence against LGBT persons come to an end.