Indian supreme court decriminalises homosexuality – The Guardian – The Mindanao Examiner Regional Newspaper

India’s supreme court has struck down a colonial-era law that effectively banned homosexual sex acts in a landmark ruling for gay rights.

The court announced the verdict in Delhi on Thursday morning, drawing cheers from a crowd of LBGTI Indians and their supporters gathered on a lawn outside the building.

“It’s in our favour,” a young woman, Smriti, shouted as she embraced three others before they were mobbed by television cameras. They had seen a text message from a journalist inside the court. “That’s when we knew they had lifted it,” she said.

It’s a positive. I mean there’s so much work to be done, but it’s a great first step,” the university student, 19, said. “We’re not criminals in our own country.”

Ritu Dalmia, one of the five LBGTI Indians who put their name to a legal petition that succeeded on Thursday, said the verdict made her feel hope once again.

“I was turning into a cynical human being with very little belief in the system, but honestly this has really shown once again that, at the end, we are a functional democracy where freedom of choice, speech and rights still exist,” she said.

The decision appears to mark the end of a fraught path to legalising homosexuality in modern India. Early cases filed in 1994 and then 2001 bounced back and forth for years between higher courts reluctant to rule on the issue.

In 2009, the Delhi high court struck down Section 377 of the Indian penal code, finding its ban on “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” breached the rights to life, liberty and equality enshrined in the country’s constitution.