Gaysi: The Gay Desi - Yes, we're legal!

Corruption is so deeply rooted in our system and has managed to infect our surroundings to such an extent that it wouldn’t be a surprise if tomorrow our kids are born with it. You know, as a fragment of their DNA code.

How else can you comprehend what happened (and is happening) with Professor S. R. Siras.

After 20 plus years of service at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), the man at the age of retirement is suspended on the grounds of ruining the moralistic image of the teacher community and blotting the name of the oh-so-precious AMU. And his crime, consensual sex with an adult of the same sex. Decriminalization of IPC 377, invasion of privacy, abuse of one’s self-respect – are we even listening?

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And we thought grass was greener on the other side. Guess not.

The usual slew of groups will be marching in the parade, from the “Telugu Literary and Cultural Association” to the VHP-A (yes, them again). One group that petitioned to march but was denied is SALGA, the South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association. SALGA has fought in the past to participate, and won that fight. However, the refusal this year carries an extra sting, since it was only a few weeks ago that the Delhi High Court threw out the old ban on homosexuality in India (as I understand it, the Supreme Court later upheld the Delhi High Court’s ruling, making the decriminalization of homosexuality a national fact). [Link]

Some mentalities just refuse to grow up.

While we continue to bicker over the existence of an antiquated law (IPC 377) in courts. Allow human rights violation by the very protectors of law in the form of torture, extortion & abuse on Gay men. Not flinch a muscle on reading stories of increase in lesbian suicides. Watch helpless young girls get beaten up in the name of propagating the so-called ‘pub-culture’ in the comforts of our living rooms. And then continue to have the chalta hai India hai attitude when the ones responsible for such gruesomeness, walk away scot free.

Here’s what Iceland has been upto.

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The name Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil stands synonymous with the term Homosexuality. And it wouldn’t be wrong to tag him as the ‘face of desi-Queer world’. After all Gohil is the only known openly gay Indian royalty (he publicly ‘came out’ back in 2005 and consequently was disowned by family & ridiculed by people of his state). In 2000 he started Lakshya Trust in Gujarat, an NGO catering & working for the benefit of the AIDs/HIV infected. He has been regularly campaigning along with other gay-rights activists against the anti-homosexuality law IPC 377. In 2006 his social work earned him a UN award and in 2007 he was invited to none other than the mother of all talk shows, the Oprah Winfrey show.

Now in 2009 the Prince of the Underdogs has managed to hit the headlines once again but this time for a very different reason. Our man is in search of true love and a British reality show is the means to attain it.

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Excellent post by thedeskjockey questioning the-oh-so mighty Pope’s stance on Homosexuality.

According to the revered Pope Benedict XVI, one of the biggest threats to the Homo Sapiens kind on earth is well….being homo. It ain’t the overstretched war or the mindless death of a sixty year old mother or the spread of a disease mostly due to apathy. No Siree Bob (who is also gay by the way)! The male lip-lock and old time girl-on-girl action makes the protectors of God’s creations cringe in as much horror as we would if we saw a character, God forbid, have an extra marital affair in a Sooraj Barjatya movie.

The crap that gets thrown our way all in the name of religion I tell you!

An interesting piece from the LA Times:

Aliyah Bacchus is a Muslim who left an arranged marriage in Queens, N.Y., before coming to understand her sexuality as a lesbian. Before heading off to a new life with her lover, she made a visit to family members in Rockaway Beach, N.Y., to give them the choice of accepting her as she is, or losing her forever.

Aliyah tells her aunt she is in love with a woman, who is not a Muslim.

Her aunt does not understand. She tells Aliyah she is too intelligent to be gay. It is the influence of the shaitan, she says, the devil.

Aliyah seethes. She realizes she will never change her aunt’s mind. She could return to this life, behaving as her family dictates, belonging to a family in which love comes with conditions. But that life is not hers anymore. [Link]