“The Magi told Herod
They’d come to greet the King
Then Herod feared for his throne
And did a dreadful thing
He commanded his
soldiers
To slaughter every child
The Magi have to bear the blame
By a moving star beguiled.”
From The Gospels
(Tr. by Bachchoo)

British Prime Minister David Cameron says he will support a bill in the Westminster Parliament to make gay marriage legal — not despite the fact that he is a Conservative, but because he’s a Conservative. The mantra, repeated several times, is designed to bring his party, the bulk of whose membership may look askance at such a legal development, on board an extended liberal bandwagon. Homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain in 1967. This applied to male gay activity only as lesbianism was never previously criminalised owing, so the myth goes, to Queen Victoria’s indignant assertion that no such inclination or relationship could exist.
In the four decades that followed decriminalisation, the “gay community” has established itself as a sub-culture of the West and by identifying themselves as a distinct “community” can serve as a lobby and pressure group and as what we in India call a “vote-bank”. It has led not only to gay pride marches but to radical changes in law. Gay people can now form “civil partnerships” in the same registries that marry heterosexual couples, albeit with a slightly altered wording and procedure for the solemnities.
Nevertheless, civil partnerships give gay couples the same status and recognition in property, inheritance and adoption of children law as married couples. Now legislation towards a further step in status is being mooted. The government is talking gay “marriage”. The announced intention has resulted in protest from many quarters, even some from gay spokespersons.
It’s not that a parliamentary act recognising same-sex marriage will change very much in practical terms. It will put gay civil partnerships on the same basis as heterosexual marriages, but nothing will change except the provision of equal symbolic weight and status to the partnership.
The first to object were the Christians. They recognise that the state has the right to decriminalise types of sexual behaviour as it did in 1967. The Church also acknowledges that Parliament has the right to change property and inheritance law to include gay partnerships. It has long been true that the commandments of Moses have either been ignored by the secular power or even countermanded. Think of the seventh, for instance. One doesn’t get stoned for a bit of coveting or adultery. In the last century, even some Prime Ministers have been openly accused of such.
Besides, Jesus himself said loving God and loving your neighbour were really the paramount two requirements and He possibly meant that rest were up for discussion.
The Church argues that “marriage” is a sacrament within their domain. All societies sanctify the idea of men and women being in a union for the basic purpose of procreation. Christian societies, with the exception of sects such as the Mormons, add the restriction of monogamy.
The argument then goes that gay-civil partnership are all very well but the idea of “marriage” cannot apply to couples who can’t procreate.
The Anglican Church is in something of a quandary about it. There are those priests in America and the UK who, having accepted that homosexuality is not an abomination unto the Lord (as it is for the Catholic Church and certainly for Islam) would marry gay couples in Church.
The Anglican Church is an “established” church which means that since Henry VIII it has been headed by the monarch and its priests are part of the state machinery, its bishops sitting by right in the House of Lords. This makes for even more confusion.
If Mr Cameron passes such a bill the Queen will sign it into law without her Church agreeing with it or recognising the state’s right to extend the definition of “marriage”.
I don’t know what position the Anglican Church in India will take, but certainly the African Anglicans are unanimously against any recognition of gay partnerships and marriage would be a bridge that won’t span that Rubicon. The issue could split the Anglican Communion.
In India it was the Delhi high court’s ruling in 2009 that decriminalised homosexuality. Homosexuality became a crime in 1860 under the penal code of British India and was not a crime before then. India’s Supreme Court and its present government (though ministers have vacillated from one position to its opposite) have pronounced against reversing the decriminalising pronouncements of the courts.
Despite the Supreme Court pointing out that in the Rig Veda and in the subsequent lore of Hinduism, as witnessed by the sculptures in Khajuraho, homosexuality was recognised as albeit selective but not outlawed behaviour, there has been no move to legally recognise gay relationships, either as civil partnerships or in the institution of marriage.
Obviously in a state which declares itself religious, the tenets of the religion determine the law. Saudi Arabia is quite clear about this with their stoning and chopping-off of hands and heads for this or that offence according to their learned interpretations or misinterpretations of the Shariah. Pakistan is in a muddle over whether to adopt Shariah and which bits of it to turn a blind eye to — should generals be allowed to drink whisky, for instance.
In a secular and multi-religious republic such as India, religious law can live side by side with the civil so long as the former does not violate the latter — for instance any legitimacy of martyrdom-gained-through-killing-infidels will be trumped by the simple “thou shalt not kill anyone and if you do you’ll be held for murder and probably hanged.” In which case India should be ready for a law allowing gay partnerships and marriages and ripe for subsequent adjustments to the property and inheritance laws and those governing the adoption of children.
The opposition from the Bajrang Bal sort of lobby can be referred back to the Rig Veda which clearly says, Vikruti Evam Prakriti (“that which seems unnatural is also natural”). It would, as every citizen and scandalised, outraged, shame-faced but loving and protective mummy knows, avoid a lot of hypocrisy, save a lot of pain and even find some orphans decent loving pairs of daddies or mummies. Out the Nation! Jai Hind!