Posted on 07/26/2006 11:14:03 PM PDT by neverdem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW DELHI -- Health authorities are calling for a repeal of a 145-year-old law that makes gay sex a crime, fearing it is causing HIV and AIDS to spread quickly in India's homosexual community, officials said Wednesday.
The government's main AIDS prevention agency has filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court, supporting a request by an AIDS activist group to scrap the law.
The National AIDS Control Organization, part of India's Health Ministry, argued in the affidavit filed last week that the 1861 law creates a public health risk.
"So long as the gay community is forced to go underground, it limits the access to them and makes it difficult for the AIDS prevention campaign to reach them," Sujatha Rao, who heads the AIDS Control Organization, also known as NACO, told The Associated Press.
An Indian law enacted under British colonial rule in 1861 makes consensual sex between same-sex adults a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. While prosecutions are rare under the law, gay activists say police use it to harass them.
But with recent studies showing a sharp increase in HIV infections among India's gay community, the government has taken a first step to change the law.
In the affidavit filed in the Delhi High Court, NACO said its surveys showed that 8 percent of India's homosexual population was infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
"Eight percent was too large a figure for us not to have responded, especially when the national prevalence rate for AIDS remains less than 1 percent," Rao said.
Activists, who have long fought for the law to be changed, said the government's response was a step in the right direction.
"We're glad the government has taken a stand. NACO's response is very critical to the whole case," said Anjali Gopalan, who heads the NAZ Foundation.
NAZ filed the original petition in 2001, seeking a repeal of the law.
"However, the court in 2005 rejected the application saying Indian society was not ready to accept legalized homosexual behavior," said Rahul Singh, a NAZ official. The organization appealed to the Supreme Court, which earlier this year ordered the Delhi High Court to re-examine its decision.
The High Court is to take up the issue again on Oct. 4.
In May, UNAIDS issued a report saying India has the world's largest number of people living with HIV. With an estimated 5.7 million infections, the country has surpassed South Africa's 5.5 million.
However, if buggery isn't a crime, nobody will bugger, and therefore disease won't be spread.
Makes perfect sense to me.
You sodding morons.
The homosexuals must take the term "underground" literally? I wonder how far underground they have to go to get away from the AIDS prevention campaign.
Homosexual ping.
The thought processes behind this are confusing.
Send a man that likes to have sex with men to prison for 10 years?? Yep, that'll teach him!!!
I thought AIDS isn't a homosexual disease. At least, that's what I've been hearing the homosexual-lobbyist proclaim. If that is true, why are homosexuals missing the messages we all hear about the dangers of unprotected sex?
Maybe they already have AIDS dementia, or they just don't care?
The thought process is actually quite clearly stated in the fourth paragraph. I don't get why anyone would have a problem comprehending what is written there.
We had a speaker at our church last Sunday talking about the AIDS Pandemic (her words) in India. Pretty tragic. Obviously making gay sex not illegal will make people more willing to go get treatment.
But the poverty and lack of medicine is a problem. The speaker said that for babies born to mother's with Aids, the mother can drink a cocktail in the beginning of pregnancy and the baby another cocktail within 24-48 hours of birth and chnaces are the Aids won't be passed on. However, not much of this medicine to go around.
She spoke with one 12-year old girl and her Mom has Aids and they don't have enough money for food OR medicine. The girl had just become a sex worker. She asked - aren't you aware of Aids and all the other problems? The little girl said yes - but I won't start getting sick for another 3 to 4 years, and my family needs food now.
The commies in Cuba got one thing right, HIV/AIDS is quarantined. While the reaction of politicians in the West to second hand smoke is beyond hysterical, picking up the cost of antiretroviral drugs for those infected with HIV, at an annual cost of greater than $20K by the public per patient for the latest HIV cocktail in the USA is astonishing, IMHO.
Umm.. Cuba quarantines HIV patients for eight weeks of education and treatment, after which they are free to leave. Moreover, Cuba fully funds antiretroviral drug treatment for all HIV patients.
India needs to keep things as they are. Once they start on the route towards liberalization of sodomy laws, they'll have "gay" pride parades and kids learning about fisting, and hate speech laws.
If they want to change behavior then tax it. They need a butt tax.
How enlightened? Do you have a link? What happens if they infect someone after eight weeks of education and treatment?
Moreover, Cuba fully funds antiretroviral drug treatment for all HIV patients.
How is this funded, and what are the costs?
Right. Which is why we should call for an immediate legalization of murder and other violent crimes. To stop them from happening of course.......................
Let's see; if we do away with the law, barring sex deviates from their favorite past-time which spreads the asscociated AIDS virus, soehow this is good?
If we do away with drug laws, that should prevent all diseases such as Hepatitus, etc. spread by drug use, too?
Makes sense to me........
self-ping
Umm.. Cuba quarantines HIV patients for eight weeks of education and treatment, after which they are free to leave. Moreover, Cuba fully funds antiretroviral drug treatment for all HIV patients.
Some of the Indians I have worked with over the years have proven themselves to be smart, intelligent and well educated. The fools who came up with the idea to repael these laws are not associated in any way with those people. This is about as dumb and illogical a thought process as I can imagine.
How will repealing the law against it make it go away?? This is akin to saying that if we decriminalize murder, there will be no more murder.
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