Section 377

[blr_p]

i guess the argument against this would be... gays cannot reproduce having sex with gays. i have no answer to that. maybe evolution would make that possible! hyea:

You are asking the wrong question

Better to ask why has evolution permitted gays to exist when there seems to be no purpose.

I looked for the answer and here is an interesting one.

It allows extra help for the children of their siblings. Thus giving a better chance to those children to sire offspring.

A parallel is the worker bees dont reproduce, their jobs are to tend to the hive.

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Yet no one can argue here or elsewhere that homosexuality is a virtue. No law or court of law can declare it as a virtue. That is the crux of the debate; and that is what is being obfuscated.

Here is another glimpse into the lines of argument that can be used to obstruct legalisation.

Well, nobody is going to be arguing on the lines of virtues to promote legalisation for gays.

Instead they argued on the basis of human rights to decrinimalise. All ppl have inalienable rights as declared in the constitution. The groundwork for the future has already been laid with the winning of this case.


Even today, it is this non-formal moral order — read dharma — not the laws of parliament or state assemblies, that largely governs this society. India is otherwise ungovernable; just some 12000 plus police stations in some 7 lakh towns and villages cannot regulate over 110 crore people. Thanks to this moral order, the Indian society had handled, and even now handles, such sensitive issues with great finesse than does state law. It is in stark contrast to the gross state law and media discourse of today.

This is I found strange in this article, it makes it seem that all law & order in the country is due to dharma rather than any law or accompanying machinery to enforce said law.

I would put it this way, if the majority agree with the direction the country is taking then you have law & order otherwise there is civil war. This is why history has shown a democracy whilst not perfect is usually more stable in the long run. And a republic is the most stable form a democracy can have. One that is governed by laws and is equipped with the machinery to enforce said laws.

QED: The Delhi High Court ruling held only one part of Sec 377 as unconstitutional. But what part is held constitutional — that is, what act of homosexuality is still punishable — cannot be described without allowing the discourse to become shameless; without spilling filth in the discourse. So it is not being described as shamelessness should yield to shyness. But, the media, particularly the visual, has been purveying needless filth using the issue for quite some time now. And growing shamelessness is replacing dignified shyness that marks the public discourse. Is it fair to subject a shy society to a shameless debate?

Did not follow what is meant here ?

 

[vebk]

Things that are not natural = society, civilization, computers, internet, eating cooked food, air conditioners, every electronic ever made or rather any invention ever made by man etc. etc. etc. and even medical science..

I know these are things and not aspects of culture. But the point is that we have come a loooooooooooooooooooong way from being "natural" (i.e. from the state of being apes / primates foraging for food in the forests). But here are a couple of cultural aspects that are not natural either:

In social sciences it is a well recognized phenomenon that when it comes to cultural aspects there are very very very very very very very very very very few things that can be called "universals." (And here I am loosely equating the term "universal" with "natural" since something that is "natural" should be "universal").

Monogamy is NOT natural. In the vast history of mankind, the trend by far has been more towards polygamy and NOT monogamy. Yet there are religious leaders et al who will be up in arms that marriage "between man and woman" is natural.

Nuclear families are NOT natural. In the vast history of mankind, the trend by far has been that people have lives in collectives - be it tribes, villages, joint families etc. where raising of children etc. was a collective effort and not just of the two biological parents. Hell, just look at our ancestors (apes) and see how they live in groups. How would we feel if the State (or religious leaders) were to tell us that nuclear families are evil and unnatural?

etc. etc.

Just look at the animal kingdom if you want to close your eyes to the vast cultural diversity in the human world. There are animals that are monogamous, there are animals that are totally polygamous. There are animals that have sex just for procreation and there are animals that have sex for pleasure. There are animals that masturbate, and there are animals that don't. There are animals that have same-sex relations, and there are animals that don't.

Motto: To say something is "unnatural" is a cheap cop-out of saying, "I don't like it, therefore, it shouldn't exist."

 

[agantuk]

@amish, yaar, what's your complaint against me? I didn't quite follow, but you have named me in so many of your posts that I am humbled

 

[warthog]

wait a minute vebk and blrp you guys actually want same sex marriage and same sex unions and having same sex couples to adopt children?

 

[blr_p]

Speaking for myself, yes. There is to be no difference between gays & any one else as far as these matters are concerned. To simplify your question, just substitute blacks for gays and then tell me whether it makes sense or not.Whether it will prolly take 100 yrs to reach this point is not the issue.Understand that even in the west this battle is still ongoing. But i've already said earlier these matters are more serious there as inheritance is more complicated and benefits wrt to social security etc.

 

[warthog]

blrp plz reply to my question and vebk its not about natural but about morality and immorality.

 

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[blr_p]

I HAVE answered your question completely. Yes, to both your questions.

And as far as moral/immoral, don't waste our time and read the ruling. The arguments FOR, put forth in there are better than anything we can come up with

See post #146

I was speaking with a colleague of mine who has adopted 3 kids. He is straight and beleive it or not i had predjudices even about straight ppl adopting. Why not have your own was my argument. In one hour he managed to completely convince me of the good that was done. Basically giving a chance to children that their own flesh & blood rejected. Who cares if its gay or not, adopting is defnitely a universal good as far as i'm concerned.

 

[vebk]

Do I want gay people to live a life of freedom and dignity? Yes.
Do I want gay people to have the freedom to get married? Yes, in the legal sense of the word, I don't care about the religious connotations (In other words court marrige is fine, but I don't think anyone cares about them taking pheras around the agni).
Do I want gay people to have rights that come with marriage (inheritance rights, medical rights, insurance cover etc.)? Yes.
Do I want gay people to have the freedom to adopt? Yes. There are plenty of horrendous 'heterosexual/ traditional' families, and if two loving gay people (male or female) can provide a loving , caring and nurturing environment to a kid, I don't see why not. Sure there will be issues like the kid perhaps feeling a little awkward about having two same-sex parents at some point in his life, but this is not very different from the awkwardness that kids from inter-caste marriages used to feel, or kids from inter-racial marriages still feel in many parts of the world. But this doesn't mean that we don't value someone's freedom to marry outside his caste, religion or race. We have come to value that freedom, and similarly we will come to value the freedom for two loving people belonging to whatever sexual orientation to raise a kid. And as I said before, in most cultures in the world, throughout the history of mankind it was NOT the norm for one man and one woman to raise a child. It was mostly a community effort. In many cultures in fact there wasn't even any special recognition given to biological parents and kids weren't even aware (or cared about) who they were.

And as far as the natural-unnatural things go, this thread isn't just all in response to your original post. There are other people who are claiming homosexuality is unnatural. So my last post was a response to them. As far as morality goes, one man's meat is another man's poison. What is moral changes from: a) person to person b) place to place c) time to time. Sati was once considered to be extremely pious. Now we consider it immoral. In many places it's moral for child-marriage. In urban areas at least now we consiider it immoral. Some idiots in Mangalore think it's immoral for women to have the freedom to drink. I think they are idiots and don't know their heads from their asses. To say that the majority should dictate what is moral for the minority is to create a tyrannical state. The first thing in this kind of Indian state that would go is minority religions like Islam and Christianity. The constitution imbibes the spirit that we value our differences. Unity in diversity.

And for @#$@#'s sake, read the judgment before you argue any more. If you can't do that then you don't deserve to participate in an intelligent discussion about it.

 

[blr_p]

And as I said before, in most cultures in the world, throughout the history of mankind it was NOT the norm for one man and one woman to raise a child. It was mostly a community effort. In many cultures in fact there wasn't even any special recognition given to biological parents and kids weren't even aware (or cared about) who they were.


This strengthens the theory that evolution allowed gays as the extra help was seen as a net benefit to the community as a whole.

To others not familiar with the ruling, see here for a good summary and the followup post.

 

[vebk]

^ blr_p, none of us our evolutionary scientists, so let's not get into that My humble opinion seeing the last three-four thousand years is that evolutionary forces in terms of humans are not really in the picture anymore - we are changing too fast for it to keep up. We have changed our lives more over these last 4000 odd years than evolution did in millions of years.