"How can the health minister say something so unscientific and irrational?" Nitin Karani, a gay rights activist was quoted by TIME magazine on the uproar created against the comments of Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad at a conference on HIV/AIDS in the Indian capital on 4th July. The accusation is that he had termed homosexuality as a disease. Aljazeera quoted Anand Grover, the UN special rapporteur on health, "His remarks are completely insensitive. It lowers the dignity of the gay community". Defending the accusations Azad called a news conference in which he said, "Some people have played with the words. I have been quoted out of context," he said. "My reference was to HIV as a disease. As health minister, I know (male homosexual sex) is not a disease."
Anjali Gopalan, who heads the NAZ Foundation, a rights group that works with HIV positive people and promotes equal rights for homosexuals, said Azad's comments were deeply troubling coming from the health minister of a country fighting a tough battle against HIV infections. "These comments help no cause. It's definitely not going to help in our fight against HIV," she told The Associated Press.
Running two major articles and quoting two people on this issue against Azad’s comments and homosexuality, in four different pages on 6th July, Times of India too tried to moralize (motivate based on rights and wrong) the already demoralized gay community of India! TOI quoted Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS executive director, “India’s rich tradition of inclusivity and social justice must include men who have sex with men and transgender people.” TOI also ran an editorial article on this issue in which it writes, “If expressed by the ordinary man on the street, such views could have been passed off as expressions of unfortunate – if widespread – ignorance and prejudice. But coming from the man to whom the National AIDS Control Organization reports, it is potentially dangerous. Health ministers of nations should be the last persons in the business of spreading irrational prejudices…”
The other one was under ‘They said it’ of TOI quoting Taslima Nasreen, writer, “No sane person would say homosexuality is a ‘disease’. But anything can happen in ‘Incredible India’’. And the other article was titled ‘Ricky Martin is ‘protected’ by gay community, which reads, “Ricky Martin has revealed that he no longer feels lonely after revealing that he is gay because he feels “protected” by the love from the gay community…… I feel liberated. I feel in touch with myself. I feel protected. I don’t feel alone.”
Newspapers and Television channels are making money out of the sensationalized news. Political parties and politicians use this as an opportunity to bash the ruling party and try their tricks in toppling the government for their own political and personal gains.
Writing on the above issues TIME reported, “In 2009, the Delhi High Court struck down a colonial era law — Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code — that made sex between people of the same gender punishable by up to 10 years in prison.”
Just during this time, an article was written in the July to Sep 2009 issue of The CALL on ‘Legalizing Homosexuality’. The article reads,
“In the world scene today, in a secular state, a distinction is made between God's unchanging moral laws and man's legislated social laws - civil and criminal. Legalising homosexuality in no way changes the moral order. It is common sense to recognize that homosexual practice is a violation of the natural order and all homosexual activity is essentially sinful, whether it is done by singles or by gays or lesbians involved in committed relationships.
The real concern is not with this one High Court judgment. It is with the potential Pandora's box it opens as has been the experience in the West: No discrimination in housing and jobs (what happens if a religious community housing society or school wants to keep out homosexuals?), same-sex unions and then marriages (threat to the definition and sanctity of the God-ordained initiation of marriage between one man and one woman), teaching in schools of homosexual behaviour and relationships as "normal" or acceptable "alternative lifestyles" ... and so it goes.
People who vouch for homosexual lifestyles have forgotten the origin of this act, also known as the ‘act of sodomy’ in the Bible. The Bible says in Genesis 13:13, “But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.” The men of Sodom were willing participators of homosexuality as mentioned in 19th chapter of Genesis and the Lord destroyed the city of Sodom because of this sin. The Bible very clearly calls homosexuality as sin. In Leviticus 18:22 the Lord gave a commandment, “'Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”
If we trace the reason for such a sinful behaviour we find it in Romans 1: 18-32. The following verses capture the essence of this: 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles.26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
The Bible also says in 1 Corinthians 6:9 & 10 that those who practise homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom of God. In Jude verse 7 the Bible says, “In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.”
These are signs of the end. In Matthew 24: 3, As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" In reply along with other signs Jesus said that, “iniquity will abound”.
Legalising homosexuality is just a start in India. The people who have appealed for the decriminalizing of homosexuality will also appeal for legalization of homosexual marriages and gay adoption. When the liberal tide of society - "high society", media, even politicians - turns in favour of gay "rights" then the Bible believing church appears to be out of step, almost archaic but this is precisely why Christians need to speak up and speak out the truth in love. We need to voice out our oppositions against such laws legalising immorality not fearing being branded conservatives or fanatics because we are called not to condone but to condemn such acts. Yet as Christians, though we condemn the sin, we are called to love the homosexual sinner as much as the heterosexual sinner.”
Once again we warn the readers to be not carried away by the articles written in magazines and newspapers with one-sided revelations and half truths, which subtly influence the reader’s worldviews!
To read all the articles in the above quoted issue of The CALL visit The CALL_July to Sep 2009 and to continue to receive the magazine subscribe!
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