This month, Sri Lanka’s gay and lesbian community, long struggling for acceptance and respect in a conservative, majority-Buddhist country, cheered a landmark court ruling in neighbouring India.
On July 2, the New Delhi High Court knocked down a colonial-era law to decriminalise consensual homosexual sex. It was a historic ruling on gay rights.
"The ruling marked a historic day for gay and lesbian groups in the region and all over the world" . Sex between people of the same gender has been illegal in most of South Asia, including Sri Lanka, for more than a century. Archaic laws promulgated by the British in the 1860s, classified gay sex as "against the order of nature".
According to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, homosexual acts in India are punishable by 10 years in prison. A similar jail term is applicable in Sri Lanka, although no one has been charged or jailed yet for such an offence.
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