In her latest blog post Celina addresses detractors who feel threatened by gay rights with a meticulously reasoned defence. She quips: 'Nobody wants you to change your sexual preference'.
Here are some of the excerpts from her post:
Of recent a group called YUVA has challenged my movement and sent a letter to the police / various politicians and, can you believe it, to the Pope as well (from what I’ve heard) to take action against me. I have only one thing to say to them...
I am a motivator and an activist; I am here to do things with love and peace. India is the world’s largest democracy and just like they are expressing their views, other people also have the right to express their views and practice their basic fundamental rights.
In case they forgot, the list is mentioned / available in any 5th grade civics book. However, let me refresh their memories with a few fundamental rights... especially those that imply to my movement...
RIGHT TO CONSTITUTIONAL REMEDY
Right to constitutional remedies empowers the citizens to move a court of law in case of any denial of the fundamental rights.
Once again, thanks to many supporters (especially iTimes), my best friend Indu (who people think is my mystery man), all my fans — especially 12-year-old Astangla who wrote to me by postcard from Kohima to tell me she understands me... thank-you all for making this possible.
I took out time to research points which bother the non-supporters and here they are: I welcome more feedback from people who have constructive points to offer...
So let’s begin with what exactly is Section 377....
Section 377 of Indian Penal Code basically bans gay sex and has to be amended/overturned as this law has been used to systematically persecute, blackmail arrest and terrorize sexual minorities.
The legislation was introduced by British colonial authorities and does not reflect on Hindu cultural values. Section 377 was drafted as early as 1860 and it reads as follows: “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”
The irony about this law is it is a British colonial relic... and while the Brits have changed their homosexuality related legislation, we in India are still clinging on to it for our lives.
Being gay is not a western / new concept. Homosexuality has existed since the homo erectus became homo sapien. In fact, according to zoologists, homosexual behaviour is seen in over 1, 500 species of animals.
Many societies, including classical Greece and Rome, ancient China and pre-colonial America had accepted homosexuality as a part of every day life.
In ancient Greece, sex between men was not uncommon and was considered a natural part of the socialisation process. The term “army of lovers” also comes from this period. Each man in the army had a male partner who fought beside him in battle.
The idea being that an army of lovers would fight to protect each other more fiercely than a regular army. While in some tribes in Papua New Guinea when a woman is pregnant her husband will have sex with other men.
Furthermore in certain African tribes homosexual men are honoured so highly they are given the right to perform religious acts normally reserved for priestesses.
If we look at the origins of the European Judeo-Christian culture we can see that homosexuality has been attacked to a greater or lesser extent from about the 17th century BC. At this time the Jews were returning from exile in Babylon.
Until then, homosexuality had been associated with the rituals of many religions. The Jews were afraid that their culture would be absorbed into the surrounding peoples and thus developed a series of laws that separated them from their neighbours. These laws became the Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament.
One of the practices that was changed to create a sense of national identity was that homosexuality was banned.
So far this is what ‘I’ know historically about homosexuality...more to come soon from my further research.
If two adults out of consent want to live their lives together then why should a third party get offended? In what way does a gay union disrupt our regular lives?
At least people are getting together for love and not for war and for using religion to harm innocent people. The first country to allow same-sex couples to enter into legally recognized marriage was the Netherlands, effective in 2001.
Since then, six other countries and seven US states have followed suit, though voters in California revoked it. Additionally, Israel, the US state of New York and Washington DC recognize legal same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions but do not perform their own.
To think of same sex marriage is of utmost importance because as a human right every one has the right to “have a family” and if two people are capable of creating a loving environment, why not.
According to certain bloggers, they say gay marriages will cause population to decrease (some were worried about extinction as well), because marriage is meant to procreate. Consider this. If there is a necessary link between marriage and procreation, strange consequences would follow.
A state could and, to be consistent, should prohibit marriage in which one or both partners are sterile or impotent. If procreation is the essential goal of marriage, why should postmenopausal women be allowed to marry? Surely, discrimination against sterile, impotent, or aged couples would be unacceptable to citizens of many different perspectives.
The rationale would be that marriage serves functions that are as important as, if not more important than, procreation, including interpersonal commitment, religious or moral expression, sexual satisfaction, and the legal entitlements associated with spouse-hood.
If elderly, sterile, or impotent couples cannot be denied the right to marry because of a traditional link between marriage and procreation, neither can lesbian or gay couples be denied the right for that type of reason.
Come on people, why are we finding silly reasons to hate? Here I am spending hours on trying to convince you to accept and not reject. My reason to speak on this platform is to invoke passion for your fellow beings... that’s it.
Nobody wants you to change your sexual preference, nobody wants you to start embracing an alternate way of living, I just want you to be nice. It’s ok if you do not support the cause but that doesn’t give you a reason to hate...
