Chad Cooper wrote: > > 2. What other culture allows same sex marriage? I'm > > genuinely curious, not making a rhetorical point. > > As far as I can track down so far, there are no third world > countries that > support gay marriage except for Argentina. Asia has a long > way to go...
This is not a subject I know much about but the laws pertaining homosexuality in India still date back to the Victorian era. So homosexuality is illegal in India, at least according to the law books. This is not a subject which has received much media attention but there seems to be a thriving gay culture in the metropolitans. I have come across a few magazine articles and interviews too - apparently, the Indian parents are more accepting of lesbianism than male homosexuality. But even the latter is considered bearable if the son consents to marry and sire a son to carry on the family name. I reckon the issue would receive more media attention when the sons refuse to follow the course suggested by the parents...and perhaps then there might be new legislation too. But as things stand today, India has a long way to go before the concept of 'same-sex marriages' becomes a legal reality. The present Hindutva government happens to agree rather strongly with the view that homosexuality is unnatural and has stated as much in the Delhi High Court recently. Um, having said all that, I might as well add that same-sex marriages, especially among women, are apparently a tradition in some areas of UP and Bihar - at least that is what my sociology text-book claimed. :) > There are a lot of references to the past, where it seemed > as though it was > more prevalent and was perhaps better tolerated by some cultures. Ah, yes. Homosexuality seems to not have been much of a taboo in the Indian society. The _Dharamsutras_, ancient treatises on religion, held homosexuality to be as normal as heterosexuality. The Vedas mention it in a very matter of fact manner - neither condemning it, nor praising it. The Puranic literature mentions same-sex unions [and progeny] between different gods, devtas and humans [Shiva and Vishnu's liason which resulted in Ayappa's birth, Bhagirath's birth from the eggs of his widowed mothers - the examples are many]. The _Kamasutra_ is extremely matter of fact about homosexual attraction and affairs and goes to great length to discuss how a person's sexual orientation can usually never be rigidly defined and is dependant upon a number of factors. Even that bigoted piece of babble which kicked off caste perversions and the sanctified the mistreatment of women, Manu's _Dharamshastra_, considers homosexuality to be a rather minor 'sin', easily expiated by bathing with one's clothes on. Not much seems to have changed after the advent of Islam. Although we have no records of female homosexual behaviour, male homosexuality seems to have been rather common and socially acceptable. Papers from the Mughal period, Sufi poetry, Urdu poetry...what strikes me is the fact that when they talk about love and passion, they seem to care not even a bit about whether it is between two men, or a man and a woman. All forms of love and passion are equally extolled, glorified and celebrated. Some twenty kms from my home lies the tomb of Jamali-Kamali...Jamali was a sufi poet in the 16thC A.D., Kamali his lover and disciple. When they died, they were buried together, accorded a rather pretty mausoleum to celebrate their lives and love....today, the official explanation of the GoI is that Kamali was Jamali's nom de plume and the second grave, right next to Jamali/Kamali's grave, is of some unknown, homeless man who just happened to die nearby and was buried with the famous poet. :) Akbar might have been homophobic - he tried to ban homosexuality but realised soon enough that people were just ignoring him. Homophobia began to emerge in Indian literature and laws only around the 19th century, with the introduction of western education and the induction of India into the British Empire. Muslims, especially, were strongly criticised and stigmatised for indulging in 'this unnatural vice'. One of the effects of this was the near-complete heterosexualisation of Urdu poetry by the beginning of the 20th century. > My issue with the President is how he presents the point that marriage is > between one man and one woman, and that civilization demands this. I argue > that this is not the case world wide, and can only be said western cultures. This reminds me of a conversation between Bheeshma and Vidura in the _Mahabharata_. Bheeshma, the venerable grandsire of the Kuru dynasty, expressed grave misgivings about the rapidly growing popularity of heterosexual, life-long marriages. He was of the opinion that very few men or women are compatible enough to *really* want to spend their entire life within just one relationship, and that for the rest, this concept would just mean a dreary, stifling incarceration. Ritu _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
