Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?

The coming out of sexuality is a significant development of post-liberalization India. Provoking outrage in some and getting approval from others, sexuality today is bitterly contested domain. It is the power of a government to define what is legal and illegal. If you look at section 377 of the IPC it makes a law that is unacceptable to almost 2.5 million Indians. The relevant section reads:
‘Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.’
It makes anything other than heterosexuality a crime. These 2.5 million people referred above are ‘homosexuals’. The question is whether a state can question a person’s sexuality and why define it illegal, because it is unnatural? What defines the order of nature? And why do we, the society shy away from it? There is increasing demand from activists to decriminalize homosexual relationships. On September 2006, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and acclaimed writer Vikram Seth came together with scores of other prominent Indians in public life to publicly demand this change in the legal regime. The open letter demands that 'In the name of humanity and of our Constitution, this cruel and discriminatory law should be struck down.’
A person’s private space should not be encroached, unless and until it harms the society. How do these homosexuals harm the society? In fact the state has time to frame laws which would induce vote bank, but not work on that section of the population which has been targeted by so many social obligations. Homosexuality is not something which has erupted suddenly in our Indian shore or a product of western thoughts as some may think. It has been in the country since centuries. The Manusmriti, which lists the oldest codes of conduct that were proposed to be followed by a Hindu, does include mention of homosexual practices, but only as something to be regulated. The fact that Ancient Hindu scriptures, such as Rig Veda mentions sexual acts between women or the carvings and depictions in the famous temples of Khajuraho, Konark, Puri are proof that homosexuality is not a western trend picked up by few Indians.
Such a forced control over a man’s sexuality is totally uncalled for. It’s a man’s personnel choice and one should not interfere in it. Interference should only be entertained when ‘force’ is present. But this seems not too accepted as well. India must march in step with other democracies in removing legal restrictions on sexual orientation.

In 2008 Additional Solicitor General P P Malhotra said: "Homosexuality is a social vice and the state has the power to contain it. [Decrimilazing homosexuality] may create breach of peace. If it is allowed then [the] evil of AIDS and HIV would further spread and harm the people. It would lead to a big health hazard and degrade moral values of society."
Over here Mr. P P Malhotra stated that homosexuality is a social vice. Why? Because it is unnatural? By natural one means a power to procreate, as explained in one judgement ‘the natural object of sexual intercourse is that there should be the possibility of conception of human beings’. But is procreation always necessary? He further states that it would result in ‘breach of peace.’ In fact the only reason why so many homosexuals remain quite about their sexuality is that they fear of being shunned away by the society and also being traumatized.
Before being a man or a woman we all are humans. Section 377 is against the basic principles of human rights. The Human Right of the homosexuals are routinely violated by police, families and other state/non-state bodies and access to redressal mechanisms are hindered by their criminal status. As our laws recognize only heterosexual marriages, the right to marriage and family is denied to same-sex couples and transsexuals. The universal law of Human Rights states that social norms, tradition, custom or culture cannot be used to curb a person from asserting his fundamental and constitutional rights.
The Law Commission of India in its 172nd report (on reviewing rape laws) and recently the Planning Commission of India have recommended the repeal of IPC 377. Does our culture and tradition teach us to become inhuman to that section of people who bear a will to be in a relationship with people of the same sex? In addition to all of this our laws do not recognize even sex-change.
The government saying that Indians are not tolerant regarding homosexuality is not a ‘just’ excuse. If it is legalised, public awareness would follow. The India Today-AC Neilsen Org Marg survey 2008 consisting of 5,353 men and women, might put the government in a jeopardy regarding the arguments over section 377. 16% of the men and 6% of the women surveyed were homosexuals. Plus one out of five men and one out of ten women approve of homosexuality.
Slowly but surely homosexuality would be accepted. A state’s major job is to work for the people, so don’t these homosexuals deserve a chance? Laws and its governance are made for the society and section 377 is against the basic fundamental Right to life. As a whole, States right to interfere in a persons choice of sexuality is encroachment of a persons privacy, when there is not been a case to highlight if the very existance of homosexuality is lethal to the Indian society

You know, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender - people are people

How often do we sit and question our gender or sexual identity? Is it always the same as the biological sex that we are born in? Can it be independent entity, irrespective of our biological sex? Most of us assume, for lack of further information that our overall sexuality that includes our sex, gender, sexual orientation and sexual behavior are all determined at some point through some ‘natural’ genetic intervention during our birth and there is nothing one can do about it. We are taught to believe in strict binaries of male and female and the separate social roles associated with both. Today when we see a television advertisement, where our hero denies a young pretty woman’s courtship, just as he realized that this attractive woman used to be a man. Oh! And everyone chuckles. Well, it’s not that funny. Trans sexuality as a phenomenon has gained very little visibility or knowledge in our society – precisely why is it so easy for us to distance ourselves and laugh at it. Our society in fact contains one of the most visible transgender cultures in the world – the ‘Eunuch’ (Hijra) Community. Eunuchs might have an accepted place in Indian society, but it is a place pretty much at the bottom of the social heap – making them not just a sexual but also a highly deprived social minority.
Transgender communities have existed in most parts of the world with their own local identities, customs and rituals. They are called baklas in the Philippines, berdaches among American Indian tribes, serrers in Africa and hijras, jogappas, jogtas, shiv-shaktis and aravanis in South Asia. The hijra community in India, which has a recorded history of more than 4,000 years, was considered to have special powers because of its third-gender status. It was part of a well-established `eunuch culture' in many societies, especially in West Asia, and its members held sanctioned positions in royal courts. Hijras trace their origins to myths in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Rama, while leaving for the forest upon being banished from the kingdom for 14 years, turns around to his followers and asks all the `men and women' to return to the city. Among his followers the hijras alone do not feel bound by this direction and decide to stay with him. Impressed with their devotion, Rama sanctions them the power to confer blessings on people on auspicious occasions like childbirth and marriage, and also at inaugural functions. This set the stage for the custom of badhai in which hijras sing, dance and confer blessings. But today, keeping in mind the pathetic condition of them one can say that this community actually needs the blessings of Lord Rama more than anyone so that at least they can subsist in the society with proper dignity, respect and most of the most important identity.
Hijras (Eunuchs) in India have virtually no safe spaces, not even in their families, where they are protected from prejudice and abuse. The PUCL(K) Report on Human Rights Violations against the Transgender Community has documented the kind of prejudice that hijras face in Bangalore. The report shows that this prejudice is translated into violence, often of a brutal nature, in public spaces, police stations, prisons and even in their homes. The main factor behind the violence is that society is not able to come to terms with the fact that hijras do not conform to the accepted gender divisions. In addition to this, most hijras have a lower middle-class background, which makes them susceptible to harassment by the police. The discrimination based on their class and gender makes the hijra community one of the most disempowered groups in Indian society. The systematic violence that hijras face is reinforced by the institutions such as the family, media and the medical establishments and is given legitimacy by the legal system.
The roots of contemporary violence against the hijra community can in fact be traced back to the historical form that modern law in colonial India has taken. It took the form of the enactment of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 which was an extraordinary legislation that even departed from the principles on which the Indian Penal Code was based. To establish an offence under the India Penal Code, the accusations against the accused has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt in court of law. But certain tribes and communities were perceived to be criminals by birth, with criminality being passed on from generation to generation. It fitted in well with the hierarchical Indian social order, in which some communities were perceived as unclean and polluted from birth. The link between criminality and sexual non-conformity was made more explicit in the 1897 amendment to the Criminal Tribes Act on 1871, which was sub-titled, ‘An act for the Registration of Criminal Tribes and Eunuchs’. Under this law, the local government was required to keep a register of the names and residences of all eunuchs who were "reasonably suspected of kidnapping or castrating children or committing offences under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code". Any eunuch so registered could be arrested without warrant and punished with imprisonment of up to two years or with a fine or both. The law also decreed eunuchs as incapable of acting as a guardian, making a gift, drawing up a will or adopting a son.
Regarding Civil law they are also not spared here. The hijra community is deprived of several rights under civil law because Indian law recognizes only two sexes. This means that hijras do not have the rights to vote, marry and own a ration card, a passport or a driving license or claim employment and health benefits. In north and central India, hijras, who have contested and won elections to local and State bodies, are now facing legal challenges. In February 2003, the Madhya Pradesh High Court struck down the election of Kamala Jaan as the Mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Katni. The court's logic was that since Kamala Jaan was not a woman, she could not contest the seat, which was reserved for women. Lawyer Pratul Shandilya, who is arguing Kamala Jaan's case, said: "I have already filed the Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court, and the court has also granted leave in the petition." The High Court verdict came despite a direction from the Election Commission (E.C.) in September 1994 that hijras can be registered in the electoral roles either as male or female depending on their statement at the time of enrolment. This direction was given by the E.C. after Shabnam, a hijra candidate from the Sihagpur Assembly constituency in Madhya Pradesh, wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner enquiring about which category hijras were classified under.
The law that is used most to threaten the hijra and kothi communities, as well as the homosexual community in India, is Section 377 of the IPC, which criminalizes "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal" even if it is voluntary. In effect, it criminalizes certain kinds of sexual acts that are perceived to be `unnatural'. The law, which has its origin in colonial ideas of morality, in effect presumes that a hijra or a homosexual person is engaging in `carnal intercourse against the order of nature", thus making this entire lot of marginalized communities vulnerable to police harassment and arrest. The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA) of 1956 (amended in 1986), whose stated objective is to criminalize brothel-keeping, trafficking, pimping and soliciting, in reality targets the visible figure of the sex worker and enables the police to arrest and intimidate the transgender sex-worker population.
According to the two main diagnostic systems used in the Indian medical establishment, transsexualism is defined as a `gender identity disorder'. The doctors usually prescribe a sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), which currently resorts to hormone therapy and surgical reconstruction and may include electrolysis, speech therapy and counseling. Surgical construction could include the removal of male sex organs and the construction of female ones. Since government hospitals and qualified private practitioners do not usually perform SRS, many hijras go to quacks, thus placing themselves at serious risk. Neither the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) nor the Medical Council of India (MCI) has formulated any guidelines to be followed in SRS. The attitude of the medical establishment has only reinforced the low sense of self-worth that many hijras have at various moments in their lives.
With every single thing going against the Eunuchs; a notable amount of awareness has also been seen all over the world. Around the world, countries are beginning to recognize the rights of transgender people. In a landmark judgment (Christine Goodwin vs. the United Kingdom, 2002) the European Court of Human Rights declared that the U.K. government's failure to alter the birth certificates of transsexual people or to allow them to marry in their new gender role was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. It said that a test of biological factors could no longer be used to deny recognition legally to the change of gender that a transsexual had undergone. In New Zealand, in New Zealand Attorney General vs. the Family Court at Otahuhu (1994), the court upheld the principle that for purposes of marriage, transsexual people should be legally recognized in their re-assigned sex.
OF late the Indian hijra community has begun to mobilize themselves through the formation of a collective. Sangama, an organization working with hijras, kothis and sex workers in Bangalore, has played an important role by helping them organize and fight for their rights. Its services include organizing a drop-in centre for hijras and kothis, conducting a series of public rallies and marches, using legal assistance in case of police harassment, and establishing links with other social movements.
The organizations of the hijra community can be seen as constituting a larger movement of sexual minority groups in India. They are challenging the constitutional validity of Section 377 and are organizing a campaign questioning the government's stand that the law should remain. The discrimination and violence that hijras face show that it is high time that both the government and the human rights movement in the country begin to take this issue with the seriousness it deserves

legalizing prostitution

Article 19(1) (g) of Indian Constitution guarantees that all citizens shall have the right “to practice any profession, or to carry on any profession, trade or business.” So, the moot question is why our country is way behind in legalizing one of the oldest professions known on this Earth. Yes, I’m talking about prostitution.

Prostitution is often said to be the oldest profession, and there's a lot of evidence this is true. Some researchers confirm that prostitution is indeed the most ancient profession, while others argue with it; however, everybody agrees that trading sex for money has existed for quite a while. According to Wikipedia, prostitution began in the 21st century BC in Near East, most likely as a religious custom, and was practiced by Greeks, Romans, China and other ancient civilizations. Now, as we have entered into the 21st century AD, prostitution is still a part of modern society. The fact speaks for itself: as there will always be a demand for the services that it provides, prostitution will exist in some form no matter what.

Many nations reconsidered prostitution as something necessarily evil and against the law by legalizing it. England, France, Germany, Denmark, Canada, and Israel are some of them. When we examine sex as a trade, the combination of philosophy, cultural precedence, religious influence and politics made each country select how to handle it in its own way. In Singapore, sex for money is open and commonplace. Denmark women can be legal prostitutes so long as it is not their sole means of income. Canada, France and Mexico allow it. Prostitutes must be contained within brothels in the Netherlands, unlike within England and Wales where prostitution is limited to individual providers. Israel, the historical stage for the Bible, allows it, too. Meanwhile, prostitution stays illegal in India.

Current Legal Status

The current laws in India that legislate sex workers are fairly ambiguous. It is a system where prostitution is legally allowed to thrive, but which attempts to hide it from the public. The primary law dealing with the status of sex workers is the 1956 law referred to as the Immoral Traffic (Suppression) Act (SITA). According to this law, prostitutes can practice their trade privately but cannot legally solicit customers in public. As long as it is done individually and voluntarily, a woman (male prostitution is not recognized in the Indian constitution) can use her body's attributes in exchange for material benefit. In particular, the law forbids a sex worker to carry on her profession within 200 yards of a public place. Unlike as is the case with other professions, sex workers are not protected under normal labour laws, but they possess the right to rescue and rehabilitation if they desire and possess all the rights of other citizens.

In practice SITA is not commonly used. The Indian Penal Code (IPC) which predates the SITA is often used to charge sex workers with vague crimes such as "public indecency" or being a "public nuisance" without explicitly defining what these consist of. Recently the old law has been amended as The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act or PITA.

In India, prostitution is illegal and comes under the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1986. According to the Act, ''Any sexual intercourse outside socially-acceptable unions is regarded as prostitution. Procuring, inducing or taking persons for the purpose of prostitution is punishable with rigorous imprisonment of atleast three years, but not more than seven years, and a fine of Rs 2,000.''

Terming prostitution as illegal and an immoral blotch on society ignores the fact that there are near about 2 million prostitutes in India and a quarter of them are minors. They are at the mercy of an unscrupulous mafia which flourishes because of an absurd and outdated law.

Benefits of Legalization
Currently in India, our legal system penalizes prostitutes and their customers for what they do as consenting adults. Money is still spent on law enforcement efforts to catch prostitutes and their customers. Once caught, justice departments have to process these people through very expensive systems.
What are the end results? Police personnel and courtrooms are overburdened with these cases, having little or no impact on prostitution. The prostitutes and their customers pay their fines and are back to the streets in no time in a revolving door process. Catch and release may work for recreational fishing but it has no deterring affect on prostitution. Making prostitution legal will allow the act to be managed instead of ignored. Pimps and organized crime figures, who regularly treat their workers on subhuman levels, would no longer control women. In some countries, prostitute rings buy and sell women on the black market, force their women to comply through violence and create unhealthy working conditions. When prostitutes operate independently and in secret, many times they become abused by their own customers.
Legalizing prostitution would prevent underground prostitution that occurs today. When men want to pay for sex, they find prostitutes. These people work in massage parlors, escort services, dance bars and modeling. There are near about 2 million prostitutes in India. If we allow prostitution to remain hidden from view and basically invisible to the law as it is today, we allow a number of teens to be swept up into prostitution every year. When adult women decide to exchange money for sex, it is a personal choice open to them under the philosophy of a free, democratic society. When troubled minors who do not yet have the social survival skills decide to prostitute, they are often manipulated by opportunists who exploit these teens, typically leading to horrific ends. Legalizing prostitution will help prevent these instances through regulation.
Legalized, regulated prostitution has many benefits. Encounters can happen within controlled environments that bring about safety for both the customers and the prostitutes. Prostitutes would no longer be strong-armed by pimps or organized crime rings. Underage prostitution would be curtailed. There would also be health-safety improvements.

Health-Safety Issues

The status quo is a poor health-safety plan. With sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like syphilis, gonorrhea, Chlamydia and herpes, prostitutes must be monitored to prevent the spread of these afflictions. It makes practical sense to monitor prostitution and what better way is there to monitor it than by legalizing it and regulating it? Legalization would require prostitutes to undergo regular medical examinations. STDs would be prevented from being spread as well as other communicable ailments like hepatitis and tuberculosis. It would also reduce gender violence, allow women to escape prostitution, if they so choose, and prevent women from becoming infertile as a consequence to obtaining certain.

The Role of Government
The role of government is to carry out necessary duties its citizens cannot perform. Politicians are elected to government positions to solve the problems countries face. Some politicians insist government should be designed to act as a safety net for people who need help, by providing citizens with various social programs including public safety and healthcare entitlements. Other believes in freedom of choice through responsible action and rather institute high standards in education and healthcare to enable citizens with opportunities.
The best way to understand the current state of affairs concerning prostitution is to entertain an analogy. Pretend government is a business. Politicians would be the managers and prostitution would be a certain procedure the company had to manage. Would a successful business ignore a procedure when it performed poorly? Would it allow a poor procedure to continue or would a successful business instead rethink its position and improve it? All successful companies must evolve over time if they are to stay in business and excel. Laws can change and adapt to meet the demands of a modern civilization. It is a far better strategy than hoping it will go away and clean up itself.
Where are the limits for two consenting adults in privacy? How government is shaped to handle that question will decide how women's rights, social programs, public healthcare, the safety of youth and possibly the general safety of citizens are valued. If moral obstacles prevent citizens from obtaining a government that helps its people while preserving freedoms, then a paradigm shift must be considered. A movement away from values that are harmful is difficult only if one decides to cling to outdated, self-destructive traditions.
Politicians should be careful how they address the philosophical limits of adult privacy. A number of people believe government should have no right deciding how adults conduct their sexual lives, even when an exchange of money is involved. Public debate has already addressed a women's rights issue that is connected to a similar freedom.
Conclusion
There are many benefits to legalized prostitution. The benefits include:
(1) Allowing law enforcement agencies to respond to more important crimes,
(2) Freeing justice systems from nuisance cases,
(3) Helping women who are trapped by prostitution, and
(4) Preventing teens from being ensnared into prostitution.
Critics of the legalization of prostitution offer no alternative to a troublesome problem. These people would rather adopt the status quo model, which virtually abandons lower strata, low socio-economic prostitutes. Instead of managing the problem, these critics view the continued downward spiral of this subgroup as acceptable. The critics of legalized prostitution rest comfortably within relatively new moral codes. The religions that now reject prostitution once used to manage it. However, even though religionists publicly denounce prostitution, too many hypocritically entertain like services and commit adultery.
Now don't misunderstand me, I don't go to prostitutes for sex. Furthermore I don't wish to see my wife, daughter, mother or any other family member doing this kind of work. But shouldn’t people have the right to do what they want with their own bodies? The plane fact is that anti prostitution laws do nothing to enforce morality (which is not the government's business anyway). But rather it punishes women and others who are trying to make a living

The law says they are trying to protect women but is what the laws are really about? Women who prostitute themselves do so because they ether 1) Think it is an easy way to make money, which involves very little skill. Just use their natural, God given talents and their good looks, or 2) Have no other way of earning a living.
I think that prostitution should be legalized because it is no different than any other service that we pay to receive. Besides, there are far more serious crimes that require the full attention of our police force than prostitution; therefore, it is a costly waste of time and police resources. Furthermore, prostitution is already legal in Singapore, Denmark, and a part of the United States as well.