Nepal to Court Gay Tourism

By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk • January 20, 2010 - 11:38

Nepal is set to legalise gay marriage later this year and will celebrate the change by promoting the country as the gay tourism capital of Asia.

Last year, the Supreme Court approved same-sex marriage and the government is expected to begin drafting a law allowing in in the coming months.

Next month, a conference will be held to discuss how the country can attract more gay couples.

The country’s only out gay MP Sunil Babu Pant, has launched a travel company called Pink Mountain which will offer wedding ceremonies at the base of Everest and processions on elephant-back.

He believes Nepal’s economy could see a substantial boost if the country can attract ten per cent of global gay tourism.

Pant, a hero to many gay activists worldwide, told the Daily Telegraph: “Most Asian countries don’t welcome gay visitors, so we can have the maximum benefit for the Nepal economy which is fragile after years of war.

He added that the government had a target of increasing the number of tourists from 400,000 to one million in the coming year.

Nepal was once strongly conservative and gays in the Himalayan kingdom previously suffered persistent persecution from security forces during the absolutist rule of King Gyanendra.

The harassment of lesbian, gay and trans people continued at the hands of Maoist rebels.

Until 2007, homosexuality was illegal in the country but the past few years have seen profound changes for gay rights.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/01/20/nepal-to-court-gay-tourism/

A ‘Common Front’ for The Marginalized in India

Gay Activist Works to Build Broad-Based Political Party

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 6, 2009

BANGALORE, India — Popping out of an auto rickshaw, Manohar Elavarthi unloaded a backpack stuffed with protest posters. Soon he would be rushing to a street demonstration, one that would bring together low-caste Dalit activists, Gandhians, cross-dressers and members of domestic workers unions.

Elavarthi aspires to be the first openly gay man elected to a major political office in India, like Harvey Milk in the United States. Elavarthi is credited with being the first gay figure in India to build a mainstream political coalition across a wide spectrum of historically marginalized groups.

“Our dream for Indian politics is to build a common front of lesbians, untouchables, eunuchs and low-paid workers — people who really need a voice in this country,” said Elavarthi, who has received death threats for his views, largely from right-wing religious groups and police. “India — the new India — is really changing. We need to build a party around social justice for minorities. It would be a sign that India is a true secular democracy.”

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Pakistan’s lone gay writer rests pen, says sorry

5 Jul 2009, 1403 hrs IST, PTI
Source:  Times of India

ISLAMABAD: Gay community in India may be celebrating the Delhi High Court’s landmark ruling that decriminalized homosexuality, the lone Pakistani who blogs about gay travails has decided to stop writing.

“Not in Pakistan. I cannot. Sorry,” Jalaluddin, who blogs at Tuzk-e-Jalali, wrote in his latest and perhaps last post on June 28.

“I guess all of you guys will have to get used to the fact that I will, from now on, be blogging very irregularly, as in once a quarter or something.”

Jalal describes himself as a “20-something sarcastic, psychotic, socialist, homosexual blogger from Karachi” who was educated as an engineer, but works as a banker and dreams of being a traveler and writer.

“For all the actions where I have come out of the closet to my family and friends does not mean that I am ready to do it officially. So, for now, I am going to have the following goals in life, I want to learn how to speak French and Farsi (Persian) and I want to learn horse riding, sword fighting, archery and shooting,” he wrote.

“One of the reasons for not blogging for the past three months would be the fear elicited by the fact that my blog has been quoted. The closet door is being banged at very hard. I would have to request you people to at least not try to knock on the closet door,” he wrote.

CNN-IBN debate: Homosexuality vs Indian morality

SOURCE:  CNN-IBN

The Delhi High Court has reinterpreted a 149-year old colonial law and held that a homosexual in India is no longer a criminal. In a historic judgement the court held that “Section 377 of the Indian penal Code insofar as it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private violates personal freedom and liberty.
So does the attaining of legal sexual freedom by homosexuals mark progress and social reform in India, or is the court upholding values that the majority of Indians simply do not identify with?
CNN-IBN debates on issue on a special show Gay and Indian with renowned Indo-Canadian photographer, HIV positive and gay, Sunil Gupta, gay rights activist and lawyer Aditya Bandhopadhyay, actor Samir Soni, Editor, Manushi Madhu Kishwar, Delhi Catholic Archdiocese spokesperson Dominic Emmanuel and All India Muslim Personal Law Board member Kamal Farooqui.

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Indian Court Overturns Gay Sex Ban

Activists embraced outside the high court in New Delhi after the court decriminalized consensual gay sex on Thursday. [Harish Tyagi/European Pressphoto Agency]

By HEATHER TIMMONS and HARI KUMAR
Published: July 2, 2009
Source:  The New York Times

NEW DELHI —In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India, New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality.

“The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of life, is manifest in recognizing a role in society for everyone,” judges of the Delhi High Court wrote in a 105-page decision, India’s first to directly address rights for gay men and lesbians. “Those perceived by the majority as ‘deviants’ or ‘different’ are not on that score excluded or ostracized,” the decision said.

Homosexuality has been illegal in India since 1861, when British rulers codified a law prohibiting “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.” The law, known as Section 377 of India’s penal code, has long been viewed as an archaic holdover from colonialism by its detractors.

“Clearly, we are all thrilled,” said Anjali Gopalan, the executive director and founder of the Naz Foundation, an AIDS awareness group that sued to have Section 377 changed. “It is a first major step,” she said during a news conference in Delhi, but “there are many more battles.”
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