India clarifies it accepts gay sex is legal

A lawyer told the Supreme Court that the government would not challenge a 2009 order by the Delhi High Court striking down a colonial-era law that made gay sex a crime. The order was appealed by conservative groups and the Supreme Court is now hearing opinions from those groups as well as gay rights activists. The latest statement comes days after another government lawyer told the court that gay sex was "highly immoral" and should be banned. The government quickly denied that lawyer's statement, prompting confusion about its stance on the law. On Tuesday, a Supreme Court justice asked the government's lawyers to file an affidavit to reconcile the two divergent positions heard in court. Neither lawyer explained Thursday's confusion. The 2009 high court order had said that treating consensual gay sex between adults as a crime was a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution. Sex between people of the same gender had been illegal in India since the 1860s, when a British colonial law classified it as "against the order of nature." Prosecutions were rare, but the law was used frequently to harass people. Over the last decade, homosexuals have slowly gained a degree of acceptance in some parts of India, especially its big cities. The last two years have also seen large gay pride parades in New Delhi and other big cities, including Mumbai and Kolkata. Still, being gay remains deeply taboo in most of the country, and many gays and lesbians hide their sexual orientation from friends and relatives.