Discrimination faced by homosexual communities across the world was
thrown into sharp relief again this month after a gunman slaughtered 49
people at a gay nightclub in Florida.
India's top court refuses to hear gay-sex ban challenge
India's Supreme
Court refused on Wednesday to hear a petition challenging a law
criminalising gay sex, a setback for gay rights activists battling in
the country's courts to get the ban overturned.
A number of well-known lesbian, gay and bisexual Indians had argued that Section 377 of India's penal code, which prohibits "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal", undermined their fundamental rights by failing to protect their sexual p7references.
"The Supreme Court refused to hear the matter and asked the petitioners to approach the Chief Justice of India," Arvind Dattar, a lawyer for one of the petitioners, told Reuters.
India's
chief justice is already hearing a separate case to strike down the
ban, and India's top court has previously argued that only parliament
has the power to change Section 377.
The decision
is the latest setback India's gay community has faced in its fight to
get a prohibition on homosexual sex overturned ever since the Supreme
Court reinstated a colonial-era ban in late 2013.
That
ban ended a four-year period of decriminalisation that had helped bring
homosexuality increasingly out into the open in a deeply conservative
society.
Discrimination faced by homosexual
communities across the world was thrown into sharp relief again this
month after a gunman slaughtered 49 people at a gay nightclub in
Florida.
Some Western countries have pressured
India to overturn its ban on gay sex and respect human rights regardless
of sexual orientation.
This month U.S. Ambassador
Richard Verma's residence in New Delhi's leafy diplomatic quarter was
lit in the colours of the rainbow in a gesture of solidarity towards
victims of the Orlando massacre.
Violation of the Indian law on gay sex can result in a prison sentence of up to 10 years.