Sex and the Court

The Supreme Court recently rejected petitions seeking legal recognition to same-sex marriages, saying it was up to Parliament to make laws to enable it. The top court, though, stressed that “queer” persons had the right to choose their partners and asked the Centre to ensure that they were not discriminated against. The five-judge bench ruled 3:2 against adoption of children by same-sex couples in four separate judgements.

By using the word “queer” in its latest judgement on same-sex couples and marriages, the highest court in the land, comprised of some of the best legal minds in the country, demonstrated a lack of insight or compassion in complex matters that require a sensitive approach.

While reading this news, I felt I was back in 18th-century England when a ruthless, narrow-minded, ignorant court condemned a man for immorality and even threw him into prison for his crime, which was nothing more than having a lover of the same sex.

The British judges failed to remember that no two human beings are alike, mentally, emotionally, or physically. Sadly, author and dramatist Oscar Wilde was cruelly punished by heartless judges for so-called “criminal activities,” which were nothing more than having a lover of the same sex. However, this was not surprising in England, a land where even a king’s so-called lapse was not tolerated when he was found to be in love with his own loyal subject and archbishop.

The story of Becket’s murder in the cathedral is a metaphor for homosexuality and its repercussions on the “culprits.” But in a land where bigger crimes like colonisation and mass murder went unpunished, sexual “offences” have sent men to the gallows.

Now the highest court in India has ruled against adoption of children by same-sex couples in four separate judgements!

India has always been very tolerant of sexual “discrepancies.” In fact, they are not considered offences in the first place. Our poets and painters freely sketched them to put Michaelangelo to shame. Our scriptures celebrate them. Arjuna, as Brihannala in the Mahabharata, was no accidental lover; his sharing his first wife, Draupadi, with his four brothers was considered an act of magnanimity; the Pandavas having a temporary relationship with other wives in the forest or even gods dallying with demons was an everyday affair causing no distress or surprise. When Mandodhari sees her slain husband on the battlefield of Ayodhya, she weeps and cries that if he had had a normal sexual life, he would not have abducted Sita. Where in the world would you find such a frank assessment of celibacy? When did we lose that casual approach to a very natural thing called sex? In our own times, we have heard Gandhi describe his experiments with sex, frankly.

India may have sent a mission to the moon and Mars and taken the success in its stride. But sex? Ah, the word and its associations are taboo. It is a criminal activity, even though our scriptures are full of it: men consorting with men, the gods consorting with humans, and the demons consorting with animals. Bhishhma took the vow of celibacy to enable his royal father to marry a fisherman’s daughter, and Arjuna, in the guise of Brihannala, consorting with a queen while sharing another wife with his four brothers, are the heroes of our great epics who go about their lives with no regret or shame.

We have put a machine on the moon and our scientific achievements are astonishing. Yet, on the day of the solar eclipse, our scientists crouch behind barred doors. A rationalist like late H Narasimhaiah would have found this amusing, although this dichotomy is not at all surprising.

The most scientific minds in this country will not find it strange to engage in rituals like fasting during a lunar eclipse and breaking the fast when the moon is visible again by throwing away all cooked food, washing the kitchen and its utensils, and eating a freshly cooked meal prepared after a ritual bath.

The long trek through jungles to see the Makara Vilakku in Sabarimalai every year, consisting of scientists, academicians, doctors, teachers, and other men of letters, need not surprise us. Nor should the fact that only women who are not menstruating visit that sacred shrine to worship the child god Aiyappan. All this is what has been passed onto us as tradition and most people accept it without a murmur.

Yet Oscar Wilde, coming from a so-called enlightened land, was cruelly punished for having a lover of the same sex. In his own sad words: “The sin was mine; I did not understand.”