Minister of India’s Richest State (Goa) “Homosexuality is a Natural Gift”
Goa is India's richest state with a GDP per capita two and a half times that of the country as a whole. It was ranked the best placed state by the Eleventh Finance …
The chief minister of India’s Goa state has criticized plans to open treatment centers for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The idea was put forth by his youth affairs minister, Ramesh Tawadkar, who is now facing calls to resign.
Laxmikant Parsekar told NDTV news station on Tuesday that controversial plans by his youth affairs minister to set up centers to cure LGBT people were announced in “ignorance,” and that “homosexuality is a natural gift.”
The chief minister holds greater power than the governor, and is the chief executive in the state of Goa.
Tawadkar, who is from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said on Monday that the proposed centers would be similar to centers for alcoholics and drug addicts.
"We will make them [LGBT youth] normal. We will have a center for them. Like Alcoholics Anonymous centers, we will have centers. We will train them and give them medicines too,” he said. The minister explained that “a detailed survey would be carried out of the LGBT community so that their problems could be specifically addressed,” in much the same way as “juvenile offenders, drug afflicted youth, marginalized or migrant youth” are targeted.
The opposition NCP party is now demanding that the “ignorant” minister resign.
"[The] chief minister should sack the ignorant minister. The future of youths in the state is at stake in the hands of the current youth affairs and sports minister," state unit NCP spokesman Trojano D'Mello told reporters.
Tawadkar retracted his statement Tuesday and insisted he was “misunderstood” and “misquoted.”
He later clarified that the youth policy seeks to help drug addicts and sexually abused youths.
India is a deeply conservative, religious country where gay rights are not upheld and people in sexual minorities face various kinds of discrimination.
India's Supreme Court reinstated its ban on gay sex in 2013 after four years of decriminalization.
The law dates back to 1860 and British occupation, and prohibits “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.” Breaking the law can land you in jail for up to 10 years.
Activists say that when the law was reinstated, there was a huge increase in crimes against sexual minorities – including rape, assault, blackmail, and harassment.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke out against criminalizing homosexuality on Monday.
"I speak out because laws criminalizing consensual, adult same-sex relationships violate basic rights to privacy and to freedom from discrimination. Even if they are not enforced, these laws breed intolerance,” he said.
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It’s a great time to be a member of the LGBT community in India. We as a nation have learned to accept that people are different and everyone needs to be treated with respect. LOL, you actually believed that? Nope just kidding, it’s still illegal to be gay in India and what’s more there is a new fabulous way to un-gay yourself, an alternative to Baba Ramdev’s Yoga Initiative.
Just when we thought we could go one whole day without stupid comments, we’ve the Goa Government announcing that it’s going to help the LGBT youth become ‘normal’ through medication and training. How the hell is that training going to go? Are they going to make them drink scotch, smoke cigars and watch football while bitching about women (Note to Goa State Government: If that’s the plan I am totally gay)?
Okay macho stereotypes aside, Ramesh Tawadkar, Sports and Youth Affairs Minister said the state is contemplating setting up centres on the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous to get rid of fabulous.
Talking on National Youth Day, the great man told reporters of the grand plan to launch the Goa State Youth Policy 2015. He said that the stigmatised LGBT youth were one of the main target groups and they would get focussed attention. ‘We will make them normal. We will have a centre for them. Like Alcoholic Anonymous centres, we will have centres…,’ Mr Tawadkar said. (Read: Why Tim Cook coming out as gay is great for Apple and LGBT rights)
When asked what exactly was the role of the special centres that the government was proposing to set up for Lesbians, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender (LGBT) youth, Mr Tawadkar said: ‘We will train them and (give them) medicines too.’
The other target groups are juvenile offenders, drug-afflicted youth, marginalised or migrants and he added that a detailed survey would be carried out among the LGBT youth, so that their problems are specifically addressed!
Chief, you know the biggest problem that gay people have? That people think they can be made heterosexual! A person’s sexual orientation isn’t something they get to choose, just like you don’t get to choose where you are born or who your parents are.
As a society, India is finding it very difficult to come to terms with homosexuality. When the SC upheld the verdict which made consensual sex between adults of the same gender a crime, Baba Ramdev had said that homosexuality is a bad addiction that can be cured by yoga!
“Homosexuality is not genetic. If our parents were homosexuals, then we would not have been born. So it’s unnatural,” Ramdev told media here. “The Supreme Court has respected the sentiments of the various religious communities of India. Today they are talking of homosexuality, tomorrow they will talk of having sex with animals,” he said, calling homosexuality a disease.
He further invited the gay community to his yoga ashram, saying, “I guarantee to cure them of homosexuality. I invite the gay community to my yoga ashram and I guarantee to cure them of homosexuality.’
He had also questioned the contribution of the gay community in streams like science and economics (because obviously he had made huge strides in both those areas). Actually Babaji, if it wasn’t for a gay guy we might have been living in a Nazi-dominated world where there would be no computers. That’s right; the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence was gay. And also, he played a huge part in cracking Nazi codes which helped the Allies win!
Sadly, it was a crime to be homosexual in England in that era and he was forced to undergo government-mandated hormonal therapy which was so horrible that he killed himself. By the way it’s the same set of laws which continue to exist in the Indian Penal Code (though they have been discarded by the British). And all because of idiots who can’t accept that homosexuality is just a characteristic like skin or eye colour!
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