The Hindu Council UK has welcomed the Delhi High Court's historic judgment which decriminalised consensual homosexual relations in India and said Hinduism does not condemn gay people.

"British Hindu homosexual community will welcome the news that their brethren in India are now be able to enjoy the same freedom as they do here," Anil Bhanot, General Secretary Hindu Council UK said. It is indeed good news that people are not discriminated against because of God's laws of nature, he added.

Bhanot said the Hindu scripts describe the homosexual condition to be a "biological one, and although the scripture gives guidance to parents on how to avoid procreating a homosexual child, it does not condemn the child as unnatural.

"Hinduism prescribes 16 ceremonies to mark each major stage in one's life span. We would usually observe the birth, name, adolescence, marriage, retirement and death ceremonies but there is a little known ceremony called the "insemination" ceremony or the Garbhadan Sanskaar, which I am sure nobody observes now-days."

Bhanot said, "This insemination ceremony talks about homosexuality. The ancient Rishis or prophets advocated that there are two elements, fire (agni for sun) and water (soma for moon) which determine the sex of a child.

"Of the 16 days from the end of the menstruation cycle, sexual intercourse for the purposes of procreation was forbidden on certain days as during these days the menses may continue."