ANANYA SENGUPTA - Mothers take lead in fight for gay sons

By Dilip -
Mothers seem to understand more, even if it takes them a while. Take, for example, Vijayalaksmi Raychaudhury. She took nearly a decade to accept her son Anis’s sexual orientation. Now 79, she senses time is running out for her and wants the nation to wipe off the stigma associated with homosexuality.

Shakuntala Vijay Kumar Khire took her son Bindu Madhav to spiritual leaders and astrologers to “cure” him when he told her he was gay. That was 13 years ago. Today, the 78-year-old is “completely at ease” with his sexuality. Nineteen parents, from an estimated six million households across India with gay men, had joined the NGO Naz Foundation in petitioning the Supreme Court in 2010 to decriminalise gay sex.

Among the 19 parents, 11 were mothers. They took a while to reconcile themselves but in the end decided to stand by their sons. “I am proud of the fact that he helps so many others like him who don’t have the support system that he has,” said Khire, who signed the petition that was filed as an intervention. “Can you imagine I took him to a baba?” she laughed. “I read a lot of material about the community and interacted with others. Now it doesn’t affect me.” Mother and son were part of the first Gay Pride Walk in Pune, their hometown, in December 2011.

That was two-and-a-half years after Delhi High Court had rescued all consensual adult sex from the axe of the penal code’s Section 377, which bans “unnatural” sex. The 2009 ruling was the result of a case brought by the Naz Foundation, which fought a legal battle for almost a decade. Yesterday, the Supreme Court reinstated the ban on gay sex.
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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1131213/jsp/nation/story_17675987.jsp#.UqqdR9JI8QM

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