Wife Installs Cameras To Catch Husband Having Sex w/ Men; Husband Arrested For Gay Sex

This wife is not one to be messed with.

A married Indian man was arrested in Bangalore for gay sex after his wife installed cameras throughout the house to catch him having sex with men after she suspected he was gay. 

Gay sex is punishable with life imprisonment under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. This particular law has been in place for over 153 years as part of former British colonial law. The law was deemed unconstitutional in 2009, but that ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court in December 2013.

International Business Times writes:

The wife of the computer professional reportedly filmed her husband’s sexual encounters with men while she was away. The wife had installed spy cameras after she suspected her husband's sexual orientation, First Post, a local news website said. The couple reportedly got married in November 2013 and did not live together for the first six months. The wife also reportedly named her husband's parents in the complaint alleging that they knew the truth. 

"The wife got suspicious about his behavior because he did not have [a] physical relationship with her. She got more suspicious when she realized that her husband would return home with male friends in her absence," Sandip Patil, a senior police official in Bangalore, told BBC. "The wife fixed CCTV cameras in the house, collected evidence for unnatural sex and filed a complaint with the police. We have arrested him."

...

“The (man's) parents have been booked for cheating the victim, but these allegations have to be fully proved before we can arrest them," Patil told Bangalore Mirror, a local newspaper.

The man has also been booked for cheating under Section 420 of India's penal code. (Cheating is illegal in India.)

Vinay Chandran, executive director of Swabhava, a Bangalore-based LGBT non-profit says, "It's up to the court to find out whether or not the accused is guilty. As far as proof is concerned, the police have appended section 377 to the complaint, but I firmly believe the accused should only be charged with lying and cheating though he was married."

Going to jail for either is rough, though we're certainly hoping the man isn't sentenced to a life in prison for a gay sex act. 

Thoughts??

Indian Government Asks Supreme Court to Reverse Anti-Gay Law

The Indian government has filed a petition to the Supreme Court arguing against its newly reinforced ban on homosexual acts, claiming that the move "violated the principle of equality."

India's Supreme Court ruled to uphold a colonial-era law that could punish homosexual acts with long-term imprisonment on December 11th, a decision that was criticized by many inside and outside of India.

India's government sent a review petition to the Supreme Court requesting that it review the legal decision, calling the choice "unsustainable," according to the Times of India.

The petition claims that the Supreme Court ruling “suffers from errors apparent on the face of the record, and is contrary to well-established principles of law laid down by this court enunciating the width and ambit of Fundamental Rights under Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution," per Al Jazeera.

Union Minister for Communications & Information Technology Kapil Sibal Tweeted in favor of the petition today:

The Govt has filed the review petition on #377 in the Supreme Court today. Let's hope the right to personal choices is preserved.
— Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) December 20, 2013

The court's decision earlier in the month overturned a 2009 Delhi High Court ruling that decriminalized gay sex, upholding instead a colonial-age law that deemed such acts an "unnatural offence," wrote the BBC.

Thousands Protests India Anti-Gay Supreme Court Decision

Earlier today, thousands of protesters took to the streets of New Delhi, Mumbai and other cities to protest the high court's decision Wednesday to uphold a law that criminalizes same-sex relations. Al Jazeera reports that many protesters wore black arm bands and carried rainbow-colored flags and banners that read "No going back!"

"It's my fundamental right to decide who I should love," said Rohan Mehta, a New Delhi-based businessman who was among the demonstrators on Sunday. "I will not let the court deprive me of my rights."

Activists on Sunday said the ruling had evoked anger and dismay across the country, and said they were in the process of taking legal steps to undo the court's decision.

India's federal government is also reportedly considering passing quick legislation to overturn the Supreme Court verdict.

Top ministers of India's Congress-led Progressive Alliance (UPA) indicated on Friday that the government may negate the court's judgement through an ordinance, a shortcut way to pass a law without parliamentary discussion.

India's Supreme Court turns the clock back with gay sex ban

India's Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated a ban on gay sex in the world's largest democracy, following a four-year period of decriminalization that had helped bring homosexuality into the open in the socially conservative country.

In 2009 the Delhi High Court ruled unconstitutional a section of the penal code dating back to 1860 that prohibits "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal" and lifted the ban for consenting adults.

The Supreme Court threw out that decision, saying only parliament could change Section 377 of the penal code, widely interpreted to refer to homosexual sex. Violation of the law can be punished with up to 10 years in jail.

The move shocked rights activists around the world, who had expected the court simply to rubber-stamp the earlier ruling. In recent years, India's Supreme Court has made progressive rulings on several issues such as prisoners' rights and child labor.

"It's a black day for us," said Anjali Gopalan, the executive director of the Naz Foundation, a Delhi-based NGO that works on sexual health and led the consortium of advocacy groups defending the 2009 judgment.

"I feel exhausted right now, thinking that we have been set back by 100 years."

U.S. actress Mia Farrow described the decision as "a very dark day for freedom and human rights," in a post on Twitter.

India's Law Minister Kapil Sibal said the government could raise the matter in parliament. The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was seen to broadly support the 2009 ruling, and some ministers said they opposed Wednesday's rollback.

But it seems unlikely the government will risk taking a stand on the issue in the short term. General elections are due by next May and the socially conservative Hindu nationalist opposition is already gathering momentum.

India's gay culture has opened up in recent years, although the country remains overwhelmingly conservative and sex outside marriage, even among heterosexual couples, is largely frowned upon. India's first gay pride march took place in the eastern city of Kolkata in 1999 and only around a dozen people attended.

Yet, since 2008, India's capital Delhi, its financial center, Mumbai, the IT hub of Bangalore and other cities have started holding much larger events. Gay film festivals and university campus groups have also sprung up.

The 2009 judgment had allowed people to organize such events far more openly by protecting gay people from being fired because of their sexuality, and has meant that doctors could no longer refuse to treat homosexuals, activists say.

"The vocabulary surrounding us was about pornography, but it became about dignity," said Gautam Bhan, a 33-year-old consultant for a research center in Bangalore, who came out when he was 18.

Gay rights activists have also long argued that the current law reflects British colonial standards of morality and not Indian traditions. India's trans-gender community, known as the Hijras, have played a role in its society for hundreds of years.

It is common to see heterosexual men holding hands in India, but displays of affection between men and women are discouraged.

The 2009 ruling was the result of a case brought by the Naz Foundation, which fought a legal battle for almost a decade. After the ruling, a collective of mostly faith-based groups took an appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Naz Foundation and other groups could now seek a review or a so-called "curative petition" to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling, but these options rarely succeed, said Arvind Narrain, one of the lawyers representing the advocacy groups.

The activists hope to have more success by using the media and protests to put public pressure on the court for a U-turn.

"The Supreme Court has honored the sentiments of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and those who believe in morality," said Baba Ramdev, a controversial but popular Hindu spiritual leader.

"Today they are talking about men having sexual relationships with men, women with women; tomorrow they will talk of sexual relationships with animals."

Gay rights protesters held a demonstration on Wednesday in Delhi and some Indians changed their Facebook profile pictures to show two men kissing in a sign of their support for homosexuality.

In an apparent protest against the ruling, suspected hackers posted the phrase "supremecourt is so gay" on Pepsi India's Twitter account on Wednesday. The post was deleted and Pepsi India said its account had been "compromised."