Don't stop 'til you get enough

Part One: Big Gay India

As many of you are aware, June marks the 40th anniversary of the 1969 NYC Stonewall Riots. Since then, June has been celebrated as Gay Pride month all over the world and India was no exception.

To be “out of the closet” in India guarantees a loss of reputation and also means risking one's job and family. This is especially tragic because India was not always this way; before Puritan values were imported under British rule, India was much more tolerant of sexual minorities. In an earlier post I mentioned that some members of a local gay rights group came and talked with our NGO, offering some insight as to the struggles that sexual minorities face in India. Their testimony made it painfully clear that gays in India have a long, long way to go before they even reach the still sub-par level of gay acceptance in America.

Chennai's Pride Parade was on Sunday, June 28 at Marina Beach (the second largest beach in the world, fyi). I read about the march in the local paper a day or two before and I wanted to come down to show my solidarity with India's LGBTQ community. Given the turbulent backdrop of such an event, I had no idea what to expect. I was pleased as punch when I found all of this...









There was a ton of press, a ton of onlookers, a few police, no incidents, and we marched, joyfully, for a couple of miles under the hot summer sun. The mood at the end was one of... well... pride! There were easily a few hundred people there including about two dozen white folks (more than I've seen since I've been here). Because being "out" in India carries such a huge risk, a number of participants had to wear masks. Reporters scrambled to interview the most interesting-looking people they could find and later that night, the television was plastered with images from India's numerous Pride rallies. Throughout the rally, spontaneous dancing was coupled with chants, mostly in the Tamil language. I chanted too, whenever I could phonetically pick up the phrases. Lucky for me, the most common chant was in English... “Hey hey! Ho ho! Three-seventy-seven has got to go!”

We were talking about Section 377 of the Indian Penal code. You might have heard about this in the news, Section 377 is the piece of legislation that criminalized homosexuality in India. (It's come to my attention that some Western news outlets reported that 377 was Hindu law, but this is not the case! It was drafted by the English in 1860 and it made it's way into the Indian constitution when they won independence in 1950.) Although no one has been convicted under the law in many years, it is used to harass, intimidate, threaten and arrest gays. At the same time, more subtle repercussions of such laws trickle down into culture and society, into the daily lives and perceptions of Indian citizens.

I feel the same way about 377 in India as I do about gay marriage in the US – neither one is the core issue. Stateside, the ban on gay marriage is the symptom of a larger, more complex problem, one that is rooted in the hearts and minds of a (decreasing) cross-section of Americans. The same is true for India's 377. Still, I strongly contend that such legal symptoms of intolerance need to be remedied. I am not suggesting that the relationship between laws and values is as simple as cause and effect, but citizens certainly give a substantial portion of moral authority to their government while laws often pertain to what “morality” looks like.

Sorry...I felt compelled to step on the soapbox for a minute there.

But wouldn't you know it? On June 2, four short days after Pride, Section 377 was declared unconstitutional by India's high court! Off the books! Gone! Yay for gay! This is a milestone victory for India's gay community and a giant step forward for the entire region. The LGBTQs that live here, the ones that have to struggle every day just to live their lives in accordance with what is in their hearts, they see how much more work needs to be done. I hope that this victory brings them strength and encouragement, and I hope that it lays the groundwork for a more tolerant, beautiful India. I feel proud, but mostly lucky, that I was able to be here and bear witness to this historic event.



For further, better reading about the abolition of 377, look here.


Part 2: Bombs bursting in air

I'm not the most patriotic person in the world but I'll be damned if I didn't long for a little bit of good ol' American tradition to commemorate the Fourth of July. Most of the team members were in a city called Bangalore for the weekend but a handful of us remained in Chennai. We picked up a small arsenal of fireworks and to the amusement of many-an-Indian we proceeded to light them off in the street. Injury-free, it was a damn fine Fourth of July!