According to a recent story, the National Council of Churches of India, which represents 14 million Christians across a wide spread of Protestant denominations including the Anglicans, Baptists, Evangelicals, Lutherans, Mennonites, Presbytarians, and even the Malankara Orthodox Church have asked for the Indian government to formally pass legislation to decriminalize homosexual behavior:
The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) has come out in favour of repealing Section 377 and welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court to refer Section 377 to a larger constitutional bench.
The Council which represents about 14 million people, has published an open letter arguing homosexuality should be decriminalised.
In its statement NCCI said that homosexuality was practiced in India from ancient times, and until the British arrived, was never a criminal act.
It added that “as followers of the non-conformist Christ, the one who consistently questioned unjust and non-compassionate traditions of public morality, our call is to reject all laws that demonize, criminalize, and exclude human beings, and work to facilitate just inclusive and loving communities.”
The following is the complete statement by the NCCI:
We, the members of the National Ecumenical Forum for Gender and Sexual Diversities of the National Council of Churches in India note the decision of the Supreme Court of India on 8thJanuary 2018 to refer to a Constitution Bench a petition seeking to quash Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalizes homosexuality. The apex court has observed that a section of people cannot live in fear of the law which atrophies their right to choice and natural sexual inclinations.
Homosexuality and homo-eroticism have been practiced in India from time immemorial. Homosexual activity was never condemned or criminalized in ancient India. Such activities were tolerated as long as people fulfilled the societal expectations of marriage and procreation.
This is the context in which the British came to India as part of their mission of colonial expansion.
In Great Britain, from the Middle Ages, heterosexuality was understood as the divinely ordered and natural norm for human sexuality, and any deviance from this norm was perceived as immoral and unnatural, and hence a sin against God. Christian sexual ethics based on heteronormativity thus led to the imposition of Sodomy Law in Great Britain.
The understanding of sexual ethics of the British colonial administration was deeply influenced by Victorian morality and its particular interpretation of the Judeo-Christian scripture and theology. So, the British authorities considered tolerance towards homosexuality as a social evil, and based on heteronormative principles, they initiated stringent measures to criminalize homoeroticism as part of their mission to civilize the heathens in India. In 1861, the British colonial administration imposed the Sodomy Laws in India to “purify” and “cure” the Indians of their primitive and deviant sexual practices.
Today, there are around seventy countries in the world which continue to criminalize private same-sex intimacy between consenting adults, and eleven countries that still impose the death penalty for homosexuals. The fact is that most of these countries are former British colonies. However, in 1967, the United Kingdom repealed the Sodomy laws, and the Church of England played a significant role in it. The first report in Britain, calling for decriminalization, was initiated and published by the Anglican Church. Further, there was a significant Anglican presence in the Wolfenden Committee, appointed by the government, which recommended to the Parliament to repeal the Sodomy Law.
In the contemporary context of growing fascism, it is important for us to understand the Sodomy Law as legal codes of fascism as they provide the State the power to intervene, invade, regulate, and monitor even the intimate spheres of human life. The Sodomy Law legally sanctions a regime of imperial gaze where the people are always under the surveillance of the State. This repressive legal code further reduces human body and sexuality into “colonies” that can be invaded, tamed, and redeemed with the display of abusive power by the law enforcement officers and the judiciary of the State, and the violent interventions of moral policing by the Religious Right.
There have been different initiatives, campaigns and litigations to repeal Sec 377. On July 2nd2009, in a historic verdict, the Delhi High Court repealed Sec 377. According to the learned judges, “If there is one constitutional tenet that can be said to be underlying theme of the Indian Constitution, it is that of ‘inclusiveness’… In our view, Indian Constitutional law does not permit the statutory criminal law to be held captive by the popular misconceptions of who the LGBTs are. It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is antithesis of equality and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster the dignity of every individual…We declare that Section 377 IPC, insofar it criminalizes consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution.”
However, the Supreme Court of India, in a verdict given in 2013, set aside the verdict of the Delhi High Court. “We hold that Section 377 does not suffer from unconstitutionality and the declaration made by the High Court is legally unsustainable… However, the competent legislature shall be free to consider the desirability and propriety of deleting Section 377 from the statute book or amend it.”
A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India, in a verdict on August 24, 2017, held that “right to privacy is an intrinsic part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty under the Constitution.” “Discrete and insular minorities face grave dangers of discrimination for the simple reason that their views, beliefs or way of life does not accord with the ‘mainstream.’ Sexual orientation is an essential attribute of privacy. Discrimination against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation is deeply offensive to the dignity and self-worth of the individual.” This verdict gave a great boost to the initiatives to decriminalize homoeroticism in India.
Soon after the Delhi High Court verdict repealing Sec 377, the NCCI organized a round table to reflect upon the verdict theologically and biblically. The statement of the round table affirmed that, “We recognize that there are people with different sexual orientations. Our faith affirmation that we are created in the image of God makes it imperative on us to reject systemic and personal attitudes of homophobia against sexual minorities. . . We envision Church as a sanctuary to the ostracized who thirst for understanding, friendship, love, compassion and solidarity. We appeal to churches to sojourn with sexual minorities and their families ministerially, without prejudice and discrimination, to provide them ministries of love, compassionate care, and justice. We request the National Council of Churches in India and its member churches to initiate an in-depth theological study on Human Sexuality for better discernment of God’s purpose for us.”
In the Indian context of religious diversity, it is important to initiate interfaith coalitions to campaign against homophobia. An interfaith round table was organized in 2014 which brought together theologians, clerics and practitioners of all major religious traditions in India. The statement of the interfaith round table affirmed that: “We commit ourselves to critically engage with our belief systems and practices to review and re-read scriptures and moral codes that stigmatize and demonize people who are different from us. We condemn homophobia and bigotry as morally unacceptable, and commit ourselves to eradicate this sin from our religious communities. We pledge to accompany friends who are stigmatized and criminalized due to their sexual orientations and to provide them fellowship and solidarity in their struggles to love and live with dignity. We commit ourselves to transform our worship places to welcome and provide safe spaces for sexual minorities. We discern the need to reclaim and reinterpret our traditions and rituals, festivals and feasts, scriptures and practices, to liberate our religions from the shackles of ideologies of exclusion such as patriarchy, casteism and homophobia. . . We call upon religious leaders to condemn homophobia and to practice non-discriminatory hiring policies in their institutions, and also to follow affirmative action to end the discrimination that transgendered people face in admissions and appointments. We affirm our resolve to work tirelessly to create a new world of compassion, justice, inclusivity and acceptance where the divine gift of sexuality will be celebrated in all diverse manifestations of affirmative love.”
Hence churches in India need to give responsible consideration to the initiative of the Supreme Court of India to review Sec 377 in the light of constitutional rights and the right to privacy, and the gospel of justice and love. As followers of the non-conformist Christ, the one who consistently questioned unjust and non-compassionate traditions of public morality, our call is to reject all laws that demonize, criminalize, and exclude human beings, and work to facilitate just inclusive and loving communities.
In Solidarity,
Members,
National Ecumenical Forum of the Gender and Sexual Diversities,
National Council of Churches in India. (source)
Indian Christians right now are undergoing some of the worst persecution in their history in India, with nearly all of it coming at the hands of Hindu Nationalists. As nationalism has been revived as a political force in America and Europe, that same fervor has spread to India where riding the rising trend of nationalism, men who are nothing more than Hindu racists are using it to revive the creation of their own idealized ethnostate but in a Hindu context. This state, which they call the “Hindutva Rashtra,” is the “ideal” Hindu society that will allegedly solve all of society’s ills once realized, and a major part of the way to realizing this state is to murder or forcibly “re-Hinduize” all Christians and Muslims living in India. If the plan sounds similar to that of the National Socialists, it should because it is the exact same plan in terms of its essence. After all, India was the home of the first actual experiment in National Socialism with the Hindu religion’s establishment thousands of years ago, which was not native to India, but a created imposition by the Persians in order to control the native Dravidian peoples of the subcontinent. The Swastika originally comes from India, and Hitler as well as other national socialists were very concerned with India and Persia because it was out of this region that the first Europeans migrated to Europe centuries ago.
Attacks on Christians in India have reached a level where there is one recorded incident every 40 hours throughout the nation. Christian schools and churches have been threatened and attacked, and many people have died terrible deaths at the hands of the nationalists, who continually use the Christians as the “reason” why India is backwards with many problems instead of examining their own behaviors and practices that got them to this place to being with. It is similar to what happens in the West with Islam, except the difference is that the problems with Islam are legitimate but are being used in order to justify nationalism, whereas in India Christians are simply blamed without proof for being the source of India’s problems.
Christians make up just over 2% of India’s population, or about 28 million people. The NCCI represents half of those Christians. Certainly not all of the people who belong to one of those churches supports homosexuality, but the fact is that the churches are acting in official capacity to speak in favor of the LGBT agenda. While individuals and even groups or entire congregations may disagree, the formal position is in favor.
As the letter of “support” to striking down the criminalization of homosexuality notes, the laws was originally established when India was a British colony in order to promote Christianity and civilized behavior. This is consistent with Christian teaching, which says clearly that homosexuality is a sin worthy of death in the Old and New Testament, and is consistently supported by all of Christians sacred tradition. It is also something that opposes Hinduism, because Hinduism is pro-homosexual.
In the Hindu view, all human beings are basically part of the same “divine soul” that permeates the entire cosmos. The purpose of existence is to bring oneself to a state of pure consciousness with the self, called moksha, in which a man’s soul, his atman, becomes one with the divine to the point he becomes divine. The purpose of existence is to continually strive for this within one’s state in life, which is the caste in which a person is born into an dies in. If he is a person who lives in accordance with the rank of his caste, he will be reincarnated to a higher caste in which he repeats the same process, called samsara, until he reaches the highest caste, after which he can attain a pure state of moksha if he lives right and will become one with the universe.
A dalit, the lowest caste, contrasted with brahmins, the highest caste. In Hinduism, the man of the left has to be poor and miserable by divine decree just as the people on the right have to be rich and also trample upon the man on the left by divine decree.
This is not an issue of rich or poor. This is an issue of a philosophy that teaches on the basis of supremacy that a man cannot better himself, that he cannot advance himself, and that he has no choice but to stay as he is if he wants to get closer to moksha in the next life. Christianity is the opposite, holding that while all men have positions in life, they are all endowed with inherent dignity due to the fact that they are made in the image and likeness of God, and that they also can advance themselves or if they do not help themselves, to regress by their free will. Hinduism gives no hope for the betterment of a man, while Christianity says that all people, even the lowest, are equal in dignity to all the others and have the chance to better themselves.
Essentially, the credo of Hinduism is to say that a man has no control over his actions, but that he is born a certain way because that somehow reflects his past life, and that if he wants to advance to the next higher stage in the next life he has to live as perfectly as he can in accordance with his current state. That means a dalit, the lowest caste which are sometimes known as “untouchables”, has to be a good poor person who does not try to advance and just writhes in his poverty. It means that a sudra, or a commoner, has to be a good commoner and stay as a worker bee/cog-in-the-machine and not try to advance himself, but just be a good cog and to embrace what may come. It means that a higher class, such as the elite brahmin, have to be the rulers of society and they must necessarily push down upon the lower castes and belittle them because they are better than them, and if they did not belittle them than it would be inappropriate. It is the same with National Socialism’s obsession with genetics in which they argue that a person cannot change how he acts because he in “born this way” just like how people in the caste system are “born this way.”
Born This Way, a song by Lady Gaga in support of the LGBT released in 2011. The actual song does not begin until about 2:45 and has a disturbing introduction. This song is one of many selections of popular culture that illustrate not just the rise of the LGBT, but the philosophy which they espouse, which is that homosexuality is something they are “born with” or are “born this way” and cannot change. It is likewise the impetus behind the constant attempts to find a “gay gene,” because they want to use “science” in order to justify their perverted philosophies.
I use the phrase “born this way” quoting American pop singer Lady Gaga’s famous anthem to the LGBT, “Born this way,” because if one embraces the conclusion of Hindu and by extension, National Socialist logic, this actually allows for the promotion of homosexuality because it embraces the homosexual argument that such people are born with the unchangeable, inherent need to sodomize each other. Therefore, to argue against homosexuality would actually be unjust since it would be forcing a person to deny his “nature” that is inherent to him and which he cannot change just in the same way that it would to ask a man to fly like a bird. It is no surprise then that homosexuality was rampant in the intelligensia of the National Socialists, such as with Heinrich Himmler, but also that Hinduism as a religion is curiously silent in many places and even promotes homosexuality, such as is pointed out by the Hindu American Foundation:
Hindu sruti texts don’t address sexual orientation at all or indeed social issues in general. They state that every being is an eternal soul, or atman, incarnate, and that the ultimate goal of life is moksha, or freedom from the cycle of birth and death. Moksha is attained by one’s real self, or atman, which is distinct from one’s physical body and personality (ego), as well as outer attributes such as race, caste, gender, and sexual orientation.
Progress towards moksha comes through yogic spiritual practices (selfless service, loving devotion of God, simple living, prayer and meditation, etc.), and its attainment implies, amongst other things, completely transcending material desires and impulses, including sexual ones. To put it provocatively, an LGBT person who lives selflessly and has mastered his or her impulses (sexual or otherwise) is actually closer to moksha than a non-LGBT person who is a slave to desires. Thus, Hindus cannot point to anything in the sruti texts that supports treating LGBT persons as being inferior to non-LGBT persons, let alone supports their persecution.
…
The Manusmriti, which has come under considerable criticism from many quarters for its regressive pronouncements on caste, does express mild opposition to homosexuality, but prescribes such quixotic punishments as bathing in public with one’s clothes on). The most stringent punishment, that of cutting off two fingers (or shaving the head and riding a donkey), is prescribed for an older woman who has a relationship with a young virgin. But the concern here is on virginity, not homosexuality. The exact same punishment of cutting off two fingers (plus a fine of 600 panas of gold) is prescribed for a man who violates a virgin woman just a few verses earlier. Notably, there is also no such punishment in the case of two older women. Prof. Arvind Sharma also points out that if traditional Balinese culture is taken to represent an older and at least a trans-Indian form of Hinduism, the Hindu attitude to homosexuality is one of mild amusement bordering on indifference.
The Hindu epics such as the Mahabharata mention several characters who demonstrate a range of sexual orientations and gender identities, including Shikhandi, Chitrangada (wife of Arjuna and mother of Babruvahana), and Brihannala. None of these characters are discriminated against because of sexual orientation or gender identity. Rather, they are all treated with respect, and judged by their abilities rather than their sexuality. Several other ancient works such as the Arthashastra (a treatise on politics and economics) and the Kama sutra have numerous mentions of LGBT individuals in various professions free from any persecution. And stories such as Lord Ayyappa (born to Shiva and Vishnu as Mohini) indicate the mystical and subtle approach that Hinduism adopts towards matters of gender in varying contexts.
Thus, not only do the srutis lay absolutely no bar on moksha for LGBT persons, the codes of conduct of ancient India as well as other smriti texts seem to have largely ignored the LGBT phenomenon, rather than persecute them; or positively focused on their abilities, rather than their sexuality or gender. (source)
In Hinduism, homosexuality is absolutely fine and it does not even care because if a person “feels” he is, to quote Lady Gaga, “born this way,” then he needs to live in accordance with his feelings. As noted, it is of greater concern that merits punishment to the Hindu that a sodomite appropriately gives away his “virginity” to another man than it is of the act of sodomy itself. Hindu men can sodomize each other all they want, so long as they are striving to attain moksha, as there is no question of sin related to the act.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
This argument is ridiculous and blasphemous. The Bible states that homosexuality is a sin and that it is a learned behavior which men choose to participate in because all men are made in the image and likeness of God, and God does not create men whose nature is inseparable by his simple creation from grave sin, for to suggest so is to say that God embraces sin, and as sin is a perversity of good and God is the source of all good, it is to say that God is perverting Himself against His own nature. God does not create homosexuals, but people choose to engage in homosexual activity by choice because man is endowed with freedom to choose his actions. To be a Christian is to reject the LGBT because to embrace the LGBT is to embrace a sinful lifestyle that God has stated is something that He hates, that is worthy of death, that is the reason why He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and is one of the only four sins that specifically cry out to Heaven for vengeance.
Homosexuals at a “pride parade”. According to Hinduism, there is nothing wrong with these men because if they believe they were “born this way” then they are free to sodomize each other as much as they want.
One naturally can see the conflict between Hinduism and Christianity here. To the Christian, the sodomy laws are supposed to be what the British intended them for, which is to promote Christian morals and to civilize people, as homosexuality is a hallmark of all paganism and tribalism since it is an act of domination of one over the other. Since Hinduism is a religion of power in which the “higher castes” have power over and are “divinely ordered” to oppress the lower castes, and that one’s purpose for existence involves self-realization, if a person believes that he is “born this way,” then it is actually an obstruction to the advancement of his atman towards moksha to prevent him from engaging in this act. Simply put, Hinduism allows for sodomites to legitimately argue that preventing a sodomite from sodomizing is obstructing his spiritual growth and keeping him down.
This is an infamous documentary from 2003 about homosexuals who are involved in “bug chasing,” which is the act where a homosexual intentionally seeks out sexual encounters with men who have HIV in the hopes of becoming HIV positive. The entire documentary is fascinating, but the most interesting part is from 40:00 to 45:00, where the author interviews the owner of a gay porn production company that makes videos involving bug chasing.
This documentary is of particular interest not only because it exposes the vile, inner and seldom discussed world of the LGBT, but in the context of the Hindu support of homosexuality, it adds another dimension of meaning. As noted above, if a man is “born this way” then it is his duty to sodomize in order to seek his spiritual good. As such, one can build on this to legitimately argue in a Hindu context that a man who wants to contract or spread HIV with other men who want to do the same is not just a good action, but spiritually necessary for his advancement if he determines this is a part of fulfilling his particular role in his caste. But it does not end here, for as homosexuality is inherently given over to vice, anything can be justified. This includes the vilest of perversions that the LGBT such as coprophilia and “rosebudding.”
The vileness of the Hindu position on homosexuality and really, its view of human life and the purpose of man in relation to creation and his fellow men cannot be underestimated, for it allowed for the uncontrolled propagation and justification of vice in the name of the good of oneself and others. That which is “good” as defined by Hinduism is not good in the Christian sense as objective truth, but in the Crowlean sense of doing what one wills so long as there is general consensus to the act.
It is not a surprise that India is looking to pass pro-LGBT legislation now either, and not because this is the “trend” that is taking place around the world with major support from industrial, financial, and government support in the West. As we have noted, the Hindu nationalists who want the establishment of the Hindutva Rashtra have as their goal to return India to their version of the German volkisch idea, except in their context it means the complete repaganization of India and the destruction of ALL “foreign influence,” which includes anything Muslim, Christian, or connected to the British rule of India. The sodomy laws, given that they were established to promote Christian morals, that they were established by the British, and that many Muslims support such laws at the same time there is a push to promote homosexuality, it is a politically advantageous long-term move to push for the abolition of the sodomy laws, as this is a step towards the formal legalization of homosexuality as it has been the case in all societies.
Given this context, the fact that a “Christian” organization which represents half of all of the Christians in India would support the abolition of the sodomy laws is an act of outright betrayal against God and the people. It is against God because as we have noted, it is clearly documented in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. But it is a major betrayal of the people because the reason why the Indian government wants to abolish the sodomy laws is a way to further the same Hindu ethnonationalism that is the basis of the geometric rise in the persecution of Christians in India and is going to be used, as they are planning, in the near future to attempt to commit genocide against the Christians of India.
As Shoebat.com reported last year, the Hindu nationalists are actively waiting for a conflict to happen in the Western world or other location that will allow them to indulge their Hitlerian desires. They are already making major advances into the government of India and are promoting the Aadhaar, or a national identification card program that according to some former Hindu nationalists, will be used to systematically identify and hunt down Christians that they would be deported to detention areas and systematically exterminated. It is no different than what the National Socialists did in Poland and across Europe, except this is in India and with the technology of the current day as opposed to that of the previous century, as according to Wikipedia it is the world’s largest, most comprehensive, and most advanced biometric data system in the world, claiming to have registered 1.19 billion out of India’s 1.349 billion strong population.
Given that most of India’s population has been “registered”, it is easy to see what would happen if Hindu nationalists took absolute power, which they are inching closer towards doing. The system is a literal gold mine of data which can be used to hunt down anybody, anywhere in India and to “identify” and target people for extermination.
India’s Christian population is small by comparison with that of other nations. However, the Christians of India, owing to the intense persecution they suffer and their status as an extreme minority, are very resilient and believe. To give a comparison, there are more Christians in India than there is population in all of the Nordic nations- Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland- combined. Given that church attendance in all of the Nordic nations is virtually non-existent (the highest is a tie between Sweden and Finland at 5%) and yet so high among the Indians for those who are Christians, one must not think of them as a simple “isolated minority.” While India may be far away and the people of a very different culture than those in the Western world, they are brothers in Christ whose genuine plight must not be ignored, especially in comparison with nations who have had a historically strong Christian presence yet simply choose not to believe or even reproduce for selfish reasons.
Hinduism says that people are unchangeable by creation and they must embrace who they are, vices and all, in order to be blessed. God says otherwise, that man is sinful but He came so that man might embrace Him and by deciding to change and striving to change and live right throughout his life, that by the grace of God through faith he might be saved as adopted sons and daughters of God. Indeed, while Christians are to bring the Gospel to the whole world, they are not to embrace the ways of the world, all which lead to darkness and death. For indeed, to embrace such a path is to betray God and what one proclaims to believe.
That is why this is issue with the support of the NCCI to the pro-LGBT changes in the law is such a serious issue. Far from the calls of stopping “colonialism” and “oppression” that are noted in the letter, the actual results are something truly evil. It is not just a betrayal of God, but it is a selling out by the leadership to the ways of the world that will then be used to strike the sheep when the shepherd least expects it.
Prepare yourselves accordingly.