Homosexuality is one topic that we do not wish to talk about or discuss about. Especially in a country where love marriages and are looked down upon, in a society where you can get married only if you belong to the same caste, religion, locality, economic background, skin color, or race. Given the present scenario, we may have abolished a few barbaric practices and accepted new traditions, but one thing that remains is removing the myths that we have about homosexuality in our mind.
A person who belongs to the LGBTQ community is a person as normal as you and me. Then why are we separating the LGBTQ community from ourselves and criminalizing them? A petition will be heard before the Supreme Court in a couple of days with respect to the abolishing of Section 377, but can law be implemented in our society if the society itself is not ready to come out of its ‘phobia’? Our idea of ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ is limited to ‘feminine men’ and ‘manly women’ (courtesy: Bollywood).
Let us now talk about a few myths that exist in our country about the LGBTQ community. I came to know about all these myths when I read the comments below articles on homosexuality. Some are hilarious, some are absurd, and the rest of them will make you facepalm and wish you vanished from Earth:
“Homosexuality can be cured by Ayurveda.”
“According to our Indian culture this is not acceptable we have far larger problems to deal with at the moment, better to keep aside.”
“Next will be legalizing sex with animals and the logic given will be ‘IF YOU CAN EAT THEM , YOU CAN F**K THEM AS WELL’.”
“It’s not basic right… It’s a kind of disorder… We need to tell such people about it and had to make them realise that it’s against nature’s law.”
“When Human beings deviate from the path of God they try to find Peace in the path shown to them by the Devil yet they are Depressed. I just can’t understand how can anyone endorse such Un Natural acts. Trust me you still can’t satisfy your self after doing such horrendous act, what will you do after this?”
“This is personal thing so keep it personal no need to go outside and make it and raise that flag especially of it is a country that does not legalise it.”
“Homosexuality can be cured by Yoga – Baba Ramdev.”
And there are enough examples offline. At a public convention organised by Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, leaders of major religions warned the government and political parties against legalising homosexuality. Calling efforts to decriminalise homosexuality a “filthy experiment”, the religious leaders said in the resolution, “We will never accept it if they (government and political parties) do it ignoring religious teachings, eastern culture and opinion of the overwhelming majority of the people.”
I guess till the time we do not openly talk about sex and have proper sex education, which teaches us that the purpose of sex is beyond procreation and show off of ‘male power’, it would be tough to make our society accept homosexuality.