Indian lawmakers have rejected a bill to repeal the nation’s colonial-era penal code criminalizing sodomy, AFP reports:
Congress’ Shashi Tharoor, sought to table a bill to amend section 377 of the Indian penal code, which bans homosexual acts as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”.
But the move failed after the lower house of parliament, where Bharatiya Janata Party holds a majority, voted 71-24 against it, while others walked out.
Tharoor told AFP: “This is not about homosexuality as the opposition has caricatured it. It is about freedom, justice, equality of treatment and upholding the values enshrined in our Constitution. This law is from the 1860s and it has no place in the 21st century nor in people’s private lives or in their bedrooms.”
India’s law criminalizing gay sex was restored in a shocking ruling by the Indian Supreme Court in 2013 after being struck down in 2009.
Tharoor says he will try again: “There will be another attempt in which we will be better prepared for the opposition. Justice doesn’t always prevail in the first attempt.”
(image wikimedia commons)
