The 17-year-long battle for the civil rights of the LGBTQ community has finally come to a close as the Supreme Court of India pronounced its judgment on a clutch of petitions against Section 377. The verdict is in. Homosexuality has finally been decriminalised in India.
https://twitter.com/timesofindia/status/1037584543610482688
A concerted effort from human rights activists, lawyers, queer, Indians and allies has been sustained over all these years, and what we’re seeing as a result is a second Independence Day, a promise of freedom and equality for a community.
The draconian Section 377 was first enforced in 1861. It is a colonial-era anti-sodomy law based on Victorian morality, thoroughly outdated, and used to terrorise, silence, invisibilise, blackmail or extort money from members of the LGBTQ community. It was in July this year that a battery of lawyers questioned its constitutional validity in the Supreme Court, questioned its place in a nation where we have a fundamental right to our life, liberty, and privacy. And as a nation that values these rights, decriminalising homosexuality was inevitable.
Delivering the Supreme Court judgement, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said it was time to “make way for the progressive realization of social and economic rights,” and to “to bid adieu to perception stereotypes”.
As the news pours in, people are flocking to Twitter to express their joy, relief, and excitement over this:
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Bye..Bye #section377 You lived much more than your worth.
— Raju (@nbrengaraju) September 6, 2018
https://twitter.com/Vandana5/status/1037585478973710338
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https://twitter.com/Mejel666/status/1037592054598008832
“History owes an apology to LGBTQ community”: Justice Indu Malhotra as five member bench of the Supreme Court decriminalises homosexuality in India. #Section377 #Pride pic.twitter.com/0UTeUH3gCL
— Pallavi Prasad (@pallaviprsd) September 6, 2018
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https://twitter.com/SaritaTanwar/status/1037589393911861248
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