Sodomy Laws Are Rooted In British Colonialism

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/sex/115025/sodomy_laws_are_rooted_in_british_colonialism

Sodomy Laws Are Rooted in British Colonialism
By Nergui Manalsuren, IPS News. Posted December 26, 2008.

In many countries, conservatives claim homosexuality came from the colonizing West. In fact, it's homophobia that's a legacy of Western colonialism.

Although 66 countries signed a statement at the United Nations on Dec. 19 affirming that human rights protections extend to sexual orientation and gender identity, activists note that dozens of nations still criminalize homosexuality and seven impose the death penalty.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch says that the oppressive legacy of British colonialism is at the heart of many of these laws that penalize consensual sexual activity among adults of the same sex.

According to a report titled "This Alien Legacy", launched last week, more than half of the world's remaining "sodomy laws" derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that British colonial rulers imposed on India in 1860.

The law, known as Section 377 under the Indian penal code, was designed to set standards of behavior, both to "reform" the colonized and to protect the colonizers against "moral lapses".

It was the first colonial "sodomy law" integrated into a penal code, and it became a model for countries across Asia, the Pacific Islands and Africa -- almost everywhere the British imperial flag flew.

HRW notes that in recent years, judges, public figures and political leaders have defended those laws as citadels of nationhood and cultural authenticity, claiming that homosexuality came from the colonizing West, when in fact the opposite is true.

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[yurbud]

1. I thought the Brits were pretty tolerant of buggery in their military and boys boarding schools

any institution that has an official called a ''HEAD master'' is as suspicious as an unmarried clergyman who invites children to visit him in a ''rectory.''

[nomorenomore08]

2. Cue Churchill: "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's all rum, sodomy, and the lash."

:evilgrin:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. As a wag once told me, over there:

"Do you know what has made England what it is today? Sodomy and spying for the Kremlin"

[sohndrsmith]

4. forgive me if I'm wrong, but from what I vaguely understand, sodomy

(the legal definition thereof) is NOT relegated to homosexuals only... it is a crime in male-female encounters (as written, anyway).

The criminal/legal definition of sodomy has nothing to do with homosexuality. Being historically connected or originating from such a couple centuries ago is irrelevant, no? Besides, back then it was widely practiced by heterosexual men - with other men AND women... but those in power turned a deaf eye/ear and, well, never mind all that.

Moral codes need a serious overhaul to call out their blatant and innumerable hypocrisies... it is time for that.

[JPZenger]

5. 1980 in Virginia: Everything was illegal

I remember when I lived in Virginia in 1980. Every type of sex was illegal - except a married man and woman in the missionary position ... in the dark.