By Fabian Lyndoh
The Supreme Court has recently re-imposed the ban on homosexuality in India. The bench headed by Justice G.S. Singhvi has set aside the 2009 judgment of the Delhi High Court which had approved consensual homosexual acts. This verdict would certainly set in motion a fiery debate. Some are of the opinion that the Supreme Court has bowed to some religious groups in declaring such a verdict, and that the Indian Penal Code’s Section 377 is a colonial era production which criminalizes what it terms ‘unnatural sex’. Hence in the present day, making the fact of being gay a criminal offence is an attempt to turn the clock back to the past. However the general conscience seems to disapprove gay marriages which do not lead to procreation and therefore had always been somewhat distasteful. The BJP party according to its president Rajnath Singh favours the Supreme Court’s verdict and will not support any ‘unnatural act’, and that homosexuality is an unnatural act. Sonia Gandhi president of the Congress party on the other hand described the Supreme Court’s verdict as ‘disappointing’. The debate shall continue.
According to Dr. Eustage Chesser the word ‘homosexuality’ itself is usually misunderstood. “Homo” is derived from the Greek for ‘the same’, not from the Latin for ‘man’; subsequently homosexuality means love of the same sex. It can be applied equally well to a sexual relationship between women, i.e. Lesbianism. This might seem trivial, but for the fact that Lesbianism is not a criminal offence and has seldom excited similar feelings of revulsion”. On this issue the Bible has to say, “If a man has sexual relations with another man as to a woman, they have done a disgusting thing, and both shall be put to death. Their blood will be on their own head” (Leviticus, 20: 13). This implies that anyone who kills such persons is absolved from the curse of vengeance, or what according to the Khasis is not tarnished by ‘ka Tyr-ut’. This is different from what those who condemned Jesus said “let his blood fall on us and our children’s heads. What the Bible says here is not about the modern concept of homosexuality which is conceived of as a mutual attraction between members of the same sex, but about the commission of sodomy, or anal intercourse by a man on another man. A Sodomite is defined in the Collins Gem, “Dictionary of the Bible” as a “native of Sodom, but particularly one addicted to sodomy (i.e. homosexuality). It was a practice notorious in that town, where it was related to the worship and rites of Ashtoreth (Asherah). It is said that this sexual worship of this Canaanite goddess at various times broke out in Israel but efforts had been made to suppress it.
The tendency of homosexuality is natural in every human being. But common sense tells us at the first instance that no perfect male would desire for another male more than for a female; and no perfect female would desire for another female than for a male. But some abnormal cases are there where a man by nature wants to assume the female role and desires for fully active males for sexual gratification through various stages of love making including sodomy. A real homosexual is not a man who wants to commit sodomy on other men, but he is one who wants some other males to make love and commit sodomy on him. Likewise, in the case of females, a lesbian is one who wants to assume the male role on other females. On these two primary conditions arose different types of homosexual relationships. Though this tendency is natural there is no normal arrangement in nature or in society for these kinds of relationship, so abnormal relationships build up and maniacal behaviour enter to fill in the vacuum. So, homosexuality though is a natural phenomenon, would always be an abnormal practice. Ordinarily, no normal male would accept to be a socially recognised husband to another effeminate male, and no normal female would accept to be a socially recognised wife to another hyperactive female. The real male homosexual partners are those who both want to assume the female role reciprocally towards each other, and in this case sexual act in term of penile penetration is not the important part but what is important is the mutual gratification physically and psychologically. So far it is alright, but the problem would arise when such effeminate males thirsting for active males might fall prey to maniacs or sadistic sodomists. A sodomist is a perverse or a maniac who wants to commit anal intercourse on other males or females or even on children. He is not a homosexual who requires compassion or legal recognition; and it is to such a man that the Bible condemns to death. The real pair of homosexual females is those who both desire to assume the male role on each other. So the real lesbian is the one who wants to assume the male role on another female. That is not objectionable if she can find a similar woman like herself, but she should not conquer a normal junior female by means of her wealth and position and thus destroy the life of a normal girl. Homosexuality in its full expression is a natural psychological phenomenon but it is not a universal or normal human behaviour. The stigma of “unnatural sexual behaviour” can be abolished but the fact that it is not normal cannot be ruled out. With a new sense of respect we can call the handicapped people as the “differently able”, but the fact that they are actually handicapped in various manners and need others special assistance cannot be ruled out.
When we come to the legal aspect of homosexual relationship, we cannot but grant the genuine homosexuals their private relationship as a matter of personal right which the law should not interfere unless such a relationship causes social disorder or crimes. Dr. Eustage Chesser says that distinction must be drawn between crime and sin and that private sin should not be treated as public crime. So we can say that the Supreme Court’s recent verdict confirming the homosexuals as criminals punishable under the law just by the fact of being homosexuals is unjustified. Every human individual has the right to his or her own private life. People can worship God or Satan provided that worship does not lead to crimes and disorder in the society. The law should not concern whether a group of people are proceeding towards hell or heaven. That is a matter of religion. However the gay community should not extend that right to demand recognition as legitimate members of religions established on well defined doctrine and theology. We should not imagine that modern enlightenment and liberalism would undo all religious doctrines and theology to accommodate every emerging trend of libertarianism. If the gay community wants to have a religion let it establish its own and sanctify the behaviour of its members by the tenets of its own religion. Let it ordain its own priests and offer sacrifices to God or the Devil the law has nothing to object. But certainly no homosexual who lives a gay lifestyle can demand the right to be ordained a priest in the Catholic Church or pastors in other Christian Churches. No gay couple can demand to solemnise and sanctity its marriage in the established churches. We should not also vainly hope that the Pope and the General Council of the Catholic Church would modify the fundamental doctrines on the pressure of modern trends merely for proving its own relevancy to the whims of a liberal modern man.
John Halford and Dennis Luker in the The Plain Truth, May/June, 1994 say that “the Bible approves of only two sexual lifestyles: heterosexuality within marriage and celibacy. The Bible expressly forbids homosexual act, and that homosexuals who would like commit to live by every word of God realise must deny themselves the physical sexual expression that seems most natural to them. We cannot rationalise or ‘explain away’ biblical prohibitions of homosexual acts. So the only biblically acceptable alternative is celibacy”. Priests and nuns are human beings and they have sexual urges as everyone else but they make a sacrifice for the sake of their calling.
(Contact email: fabianthaiang@ gmail.com)