New Delhi:
I have barely finished celebrating what has been an important event in the battle for "Marriage Equality" in the world's (still) most powerful democracy. America's largest state, New York after a tense and nail-biting legislative battle to the finish where the possible outcome was not known till the very last minutes. The decision arrived just in time for gay pride and hundreds of "homosexuals" converged upon New York's most visible symbol of just that (pride), the Stonewall Bar, where the Western gay rights movement had a violent beginning in 1969.
I often call myself a "homophobic homosexual" in a kind of half serious self-deprecatory manner. I am not a huge fan of the bacchanalia of gay prides in the West, where this seeming celebration of our "sexual otherness" legitimises our pariah status for those in religious and conservative circles who find exactly the ammunition they are looking for as we annually and sometimes literally let it all hang out.
It was therefore interesting to be called to opine on this matter on this network, where I used to work as a reporter more than a decade ago. I have never been good at supplying sound-bite television pithy one-liners. And perhaps because I was a guest on a phone, I was not able to talk about many contours of this debate, I have thought about deeply for many years.
I also did not realise that joining me on this panel would be a Christian priest and a Shia religious leader. If I had known, I would, for example have forcefully noted that the only thing that seems to unite these religious figures is their intense homophobia and indeed their deep animus towards homosexuality. In India for example, the Hindu, Christian and Muslim religious enforcers of morality usually cannot speak in one voice about anything. But when the Delhi High Court repeals Section 377 they immediately and conveniently find common cause. Homophobia as we have seen in Jerusalem or in the US brings together religious voices that usually do not have anything good to say about each other's faith traditions.
The notion that heterosexual marriage is a vehicle for procreation is tired logic that has no place in the twenty first century. In Christianity where the sexual act usually ends up being sinful, I can perhaps understand the Biblical damnation visited upon those who do not conform. But both Hinduism and Islam, India's two largest religions celebrate the sexual act as pleasurable in many instances. But it has also been clear for a while that for theologians the very fabric of the moral supremacy of religious dogma is woven in the idea of the propagation of the species through the divinely sanctioned notion of man-woman marriage.
As an Indian and only a recent US immigrant who is mostly fiercely proud of the motherland I feel that there are many reasons India can take the lead in this entire sordid mess. India is the world's largest and most vibrant democracy. With a raucous multi-party system where even the poorest have ad exercise their franchise it is perhaps even superior to the US notion of a democracy with its two party system. Five thousand years of many layers of religiosity, culture and civilization have helped create a complex social fabric where historically sexual desire has been openly debated, found expression and even celebrated. In challenging an outdated law of an archaic colonial penal code (Section 377) India already showed the lead to many of its neighbours. With a remarkable and (mostly) incredibly modern Constitution the Indian state stresses equality in the eyes of the law for all its citizens. Clearly by taking the lead in this issue as well, India can fulfill one of its obligations as the world's largest democracy.
Even "geo-politically" this would enable India to have the "cool" factor and allow it to show a finger to authoritarian, very non-democracy-China. The latter which denies rather basic human rights taken for granted in arch rival India will not be passing any marriage equality laws in a hurry.
In India, just like America the debate on what to call same sex marriage is vital. Many gay activists in the US do not want to replicate the idea of what they call "hetero-normative marriage". They prefer other language, "Civil Partnerships" for example. Others prefer marriage because of the social status the word brings. In both cases the denial of basic human rights within a supposedly egalitarian constitution is egregious. When I die, my husband of seven years should be able to decide on what my funeral should be. When I am seriously ill, he should have primary hospital visitation rights and not my geographically distant family in India. We should be able to file taxes jointly and therefore as tax paying residents get the same financial benefits other married people enjoy. The list is endless. On the federal level in the US there are 1,049 basic rights denied to same sex couples.
And here in the US some of our biggest and most bitter battles are being fought on the frontlines of religion. The culture wars in the US are back, not that they ever went away. Ironically it was a Democratic President, Bill Clinton who signed two of the biggest setbacks to gay people into law. These were DOMA or the Defence of Marriage Act and the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell. The latter was just repealed by Barack Obama, who like many in the Republican Party even, realized that with the US engaged in multiple wars, the patriotism of gay soldiers should be open to equal exploitation by a government that loves its wars. Obama, who is leery of the ire of the right-wing claims his position on gay marriage is "evolving". He needs to win re-election and perhaps coming out openly in support would make him an easy target and make this gay marriage "thing" a primary and distracting election issue.
Lets just remember that in America the fault-lines of prejudice run deep. The fire and brimstone spewing standard bearers of a so-called "conservative majority and accurate reflection of American values" will not support gay marriage in a hurry. This is clear. For Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman and the Mormon Mitt Romney and John Huntsman, all of them but Palin, presidential candidates the marriage debate is a convenient wedge issue and their opposition to it gets them many brownie points from their supporters. And in any case unless we get the right to "marry" at the federal level here in the US we shall continue to be examples of the "separate yet equal" hypocrisy of our government.
Also last I checked, none of them had a direct hotline to Allah, God or Bhagwan where they were told that marriage is blessed or created by him. Marriage remains a "man-made" institution--which was not exactly around throughout human history.
But to be blunt, last I checked, neither Sarah Palin nor the Shia authority figure on NDTV had a direct hotline to God or Allah where he reminded them about his opposition to gay couples being able to legally celebrate and get approval for their love.
So call it what you will, the legal sanction for same sex couples to get the necessary stamp of approval for their loves and lives just like other citizens is long overdue in the worlds largest and second largest democracies.
The hypocrisy of Constitutions that promise absolute equality and yet deny this most basic of human rights cannot be overstated. Just a few decades ago marriage was racially segregated in the US and mixed religion and even inter-caste marriages would find it almost impossible to be sanctioned in India. But as we go about the business of writing the history of a new century we need to be aware that we cannot any longer afford to be on its (history's) wrong side.
Morality for example cannot be policed by the state any longer and governments do not have the rights to come into people's bedrooms or deny them what they choose to give the majority of their citizens. Lets try and be in-step with the promise of the twenty first century.