Pointless ripples in the Gay Bay

It is a waste of time really; the conclusion will be the same — inconclusive! The moral majority and salty saints will continue to protest vehemently, and the demanding minority will only stamp and stomp with greater force as they knock down Delhi’s door in the cry for acceptance.

This time around, we would be wise to move beyond the debate. Let’s consider the very possible reality that once the law is nationally ‘de-criminalised’ and homosexuals and lesbians force their way into the mainstream, the next step will be the demand for acceptance of gay marriage and thereafter the very natural insistence on being permitted to adopt children and have a family.

Everyone, a gay writer insists, has the right to shape family forms that fits his or her needs. It is a popular misconception in India that the West easily accepted same-sex relationships, or agreed that same-sex-parent families can or should be created so readily.

The defining moment in British engagement with the issue was the passing of the controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988, which outlawed support by local authorities for the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ and “the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. A similar ‘touchstone moment’ in the United States was in 1996, when in the face of gay movements in different states, the Congress rushed into law the Defence of Marriage Act.

India is at the fork of the road now and has to determine whether it will ultimately succumb as the West did, or preserve its long-standing resistance to upsetting the traditional family cart.

Debating the issue can bring no new insight. Instead, let’s fast-forward our way into the future and visualise a scenario in which gay families become part of the mainstream family network and the impact this will have on society. Most of the research done on the pros and cons of gay parenting are methodically flawed because they are driven by political agendas instead of an objective search for truth.

Openly lesbian researchers will manipulate findings to portray homosexual parenting in positive light, whereas gay-bashing research will do what it can to show that children raised in homosexual households are doomed from the word go.

Where does it all lead to
To sincerely explore the subject instead of debating it every citizen could conduct a personal research to get answers to some common-sense questions:
n In a lesbian household, is a child to be raised by two moms, both to be called ‘mummy’ or will it be ‘Ratna mummy’ and ‘Nirmala mummy’? Likewise in the opposite, will a child have two daddies?

* How will that child describe the family in school essays and who will protect the student from the derision of other students?

*Often, the child of a pilot wants to be a
pilot, a doctor’s child heads for medical school; will the child adopted by a homosexual parent feel inclined to follow in the
footsteps of the parental choice?

* If children of same-sex-parents did make friends, would those friends feel comfortable visiting the household?

* Let us put aside the chief argument against gay adoption which is that homosexual relationships are often unstable and that most homosexuals are promiscuous. If gay marriages are legalised, will the Indian courts have to start a whole new system for gay divorces, property rights and custody fights?

* How will the passport office and other government and academic organisations deal with the chaos of re-creating application forms? Would they then read thus ‘Name of father’ and then ‘Name of mother other father?’

These questions are just the tip of the iceberg. It would not be a bad idea for high school and pre-university students to deal with the subject in class assignments, projects and surveys.

After all, they are the generation that will be impacted the most by the current laws being amended, re-drafted and debated. Moreover, their direct encounter with the truth will help them make their own wise choice should they ever reach dilemma’s turnpoint.