Activists helped bring India to the brink of a landmark ruling on gay rights
MUMBAI, India - India's Supreme Court is due to rule soon in a case challenging Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes same-sex intercourse. Based on the justices' comments in hearings last month, the colonial-era statute's days appear numbered.
Homosexuality "is not an aberration but a variation," one said. "Would you now want to make sexual intercourse itself a crime?" asked another.
Five years after the court surprised many by reinstating the law introduced by the British in 1860, Indian activists are optimistic that the ban on sexual intercourse described in the law as "against the order of nature" will be overturned once and for all.
A Supreme Court judgment
