The Bodice: Opinion, Protest and Rainbows
A friend goes back home to Taiwan for a brief period. I receive Skype calls at ungodly hours to discuss a question which haunts him. Is it okay to be anti-gay? Discussing this with other friends – the ones he considers important to his existence – he finds different responses. More than often, ones that shock him.
‘Yes,’ some say, ‘if one can be pro-gay, one can be anti-gay.’
I am informed that these friends who hold such opinions are not anti-gay themselves – make no mistake – but they merely believe that people can be anti-gay.
Screen-shots of their conversations are sent to me. Without variation, all of them diverge into freedom of speech, freedom of expression and the notorious right to opine.
‘It’s just their personal opinion.’
‘They are entitled to think what they want to think. As long as no one’s in your way.’
There are other questions that arise, such as:
‘Why do you care if anyone’s anti-gay? How does that affect you?’
Days later, my friend reluctantly admits to me that he has stopped trying to convince them otherwise.
‘There are no points,’ he says, ‘I cannot give them a list of reasons stating why it’s not right to be anti-gay.’
It isn’t in him to understand how something so basic cannot be understood. He is left with me. By now, my input on this matter is more than crucial to his life. I’m the last best-friend standing.
‘I will have to re-evaluate our friendship depending on what you have to say,’ his message threatens.
A few weeks before this conversation, he showed me a video of a public protest against same-sex marriage from November 2013, by a rather large group of people in Taiwan. A relatively small group of brave homosexuals crash the party carrying rainbow coloured slogans and wearing rainbow coloured identifiers.
The video shows them being separated and then surrounded by a human circle of anti-same-sex-marriage protesters. They wear a mask which covers their nose and mouth. On their sleeves is a red band. They carry placards with words concerning the future of their children, the plight of generations to come, the sanctity of marriage, etc.
Trapped in this circle, the individuals are silently asked to rethink their right to marriage, their sexuality and their lives. The video shifts from one circle of anti-homosexual thought to another, with an individual trapped inside. In one particular part of the video, an individual caught in this circle talks to the opposition. Her words are met with silence – strong silence, an iron curtain silence. Some of the homosexuals are seen to stand quietly within this circle. The others fight free. They are chased around. I am afraid for these outnumbered few. I’m also proud of them.
I know what my friend’s fear is. I know where the angst comes from. Simple mathematics. One plus one makes two. Two in a town in a state with ten towns makes it twenty. Twenty in a state in a region with five states makes it a hundred. A hundred in a country with five regions makes it five hundred. This is not drawn to scale. Amplify a small book sized map to the real size of the land. My miniature number of five hundred can be amplified to thousands, millions spread across the world. Now imagine them all coming out on the streets and protesting against the rights of homosexuals. Because they have a right to express, they have a right to opine and they can be anti-gay.
Roughly make an estimate of the number of people who could be anti-gay right now. Imagine those around you, those who give you grudging looks, those who keep their distance from the subject. I’ve counted forty so far in my personal circle of friends and acquaintances. I’m too afraid to assess my family.
In December 2013, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which ‘criminalises carnal intercourse against the order of nature’ was reinstated after its repeal in 2009. It was initially introduced in 1860 by the British rulers against homosexuality in India.
“377. Unnatural offences: Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”
Section 377, as vague as it sounds has become quite troublesome for the already heavily stigma-struck homosexual community in India. Just when it was widely agreed that the law was with them, they were pushed back into the closet with a threat of being pushed into prison.
In 2009, the act was repealed because it went against a primary constitutional tenet of the Indian constitution which is ‘inclusiveness’. But in 2013, two Justices at the Supreme Court went on to declare that Section 377 could not be convicted to possess ‘the vice of unconstitutionality’.
What happened between 2009 and 2013? One opinion became two, became hundreds and thousands and eventually a propaganda machine powerful enough to criminalise homosexuality with life term imprisonment. Powerful enough to call it an ‘unnatural offence’. Of course a deluge of debates were sparked by the reinstating of Section 377. But more than half of them rejoiced for their culture, their tradition and the future of their children, the sanctity of marriage that 377 had preserved. They knew nothing about the lives their opinions cost.
When my friend is back in Coventry, we head to Rainbows for the night. We meet a group of people celebrating a friend’s birthday. We quickly make friends. One of them comes up to me and asks me to dance with her. Midway, my friend casually tells her that I am not specifically into women. I smile hesitantly. ‘I’m not against anything honey, come around here,’ she says and continues to dance with me.
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