Indian sex: What’s unnatural, asks Supreme Court?
A eunuch poses with her partner during a rally by members of the transgender, gay and lesbian communities to celebrate an Indian court’s ruling decriminalising gay sex between consenting adults, in Mumbai on July 1, 2009.
What's unnatural when it comes to sex, India's Supreme Court asked Wednesday?
To paraphrase Cole Porter: Bird do it, bees do it. But astrologers and gurus are opposed to it.
That's right folks, the fight to decriminalize homosexuality continues in India, with the Supreme Court finally beginning deliberations on a petition to set aside its 2009 ruling that consenting sex between adults, conducted in private, need not be considered a jailing offense.
Unfortunately, the judges don't seem to have understood — or taken to heart — that the salient issue is human rights, and privacy, or so it appears from the BBC. Instead, they focused on semantics:
"So who is the expert to say what is 'unnatural sex'? The meaning of the word has never been constant," the BBC quoted Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhyaya as asking a petitioner who challenged the judgement.
"We have travelled a distance of 60 years. Now it is test-tube babies, surrogate mothers. They are called discoveries. Is it in the order of nature? Is there carnal intercourse?"
Next they'll be drawing inspiration, or at least analogy, from street dogs — which, frankly, aren't always clear on what's "natural".
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto. Let's call the whole thing off.