Everyone has the ‘Right to Love’
The Supreme Court ruled on Section
377. The Supreme Court has come up with landmark judgment decriminalising gay
sex. It is a reaffirmation of the right to love. In a 5-0
verdict, a Constitution Bench has corrected the flagrant judicial error
LGBTQ community’s recognised right
to equal protection of the law has at last been upheld. There was nothing wrong
in the law treating people having sex “against the order of nature” differently
from those who abide by “nature”. It was up to Parliament to act if it wanted
to change the law against unnatural sex.
The court has upheld homosexuals’ right to have intimate relations with people of
their choice, their inherent right to privacy and dignity and the freedom to
live without fear.
Justice Indu Malhotra strikes a
poignant note when she says history owes an apology to the LGBTQ community for
the delay in providing the redress.
This is a verdict that will, to borrow a
phrase from Justice Chandrachud, help sexual minorities ‘confront the closet’
and realise their rights.
Stigma, oppression and prejudice
against the community have to be eradicated, says CJ Dipak Misra. Bigoted and
homophobic attitudes dehumanise transgenders by denying them their dignity,
personhood and above all, their basic human rights. “It is the foremost duty of
each one of us to stand up and speak up against the slightest form of
discrimination against transgenders that we come across. Let us move from bigotry to
tolerance,” the Chief Justice wrote.
“Transgenders have to progress from
their narrow claustrophobic spaces of mere survival, hiding in there with their
isolation and fears, to enjoying the richness of living,” Chief Justice Misra
observed. The community should get equal opportunity in all walks of life, CJ
further added.
Thus India is at last seeing the
most beautiful rainbow in form of the decriminalization of Section 377 IPC
after a long long fight against the storm of taboos and norms.
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