Pornography is replacing sex education – Telegraph.
Dangerous stuff… one that gets me worried as a parent.

Spurred by a post I saw elsewhere on the web I tried out some ‘trend-spotting’ of my own. Interestingly, the country which searches for topics related to ‘sex‘ the most is Pakistan. India comes in at number three and Indonesia at number six. Out of the top ten, six are Muslim majority nations. And the number one city in the list is Bangalore. When it comes to searching about ‘god‘ Philippines comes out on top although the rest of the list is dominated by cities and countries of the developed Western world. The small city state of Singapore is at number five beating the populous nations of India (sixth) and Indonesia (seventh). But funnily enough Philippines also takes the top spot when it comes to searching for ‘atheism‘. The rest of the list is entirely dominated by Western nations with India being the only exception at number nine.

The fact that India features on almost all the trend lists I tried out may have something to do with its large and young population who make up for the world’s third largest in number of Internet users. (China, the largest, of course doesn’t feature in these lists for various reasons!)

If you notice I have refrained from drawing any inferences from these statistics and am merely presenting what I saw. You can draw your own conclusions and try out more keywords at the Google Trends site. And for a perspective on these trends please do also see this chart of the world’s top 20 countries in terms of number of Internet users.

Few people who are heterosexual can fully understand what it means to be gay and why homophobia exercises us so much.

To be gay is to grow up and live in a cage made of people’s put-downs, ignorant labels, derisive jokes, outright ranting and explicit laws. We see exclusions everywhere we look – in family traditions, employee benefits, in army service, in job promotion. We see hate scrawled everywhere – on posting boards, religious sermons, even in parents’ letters to far-off sons and daughters.

We hear silence when the censors have flicked the switch. Silence again when, even when our parents know we’re gay, they don’t have a good word to say about it. And more silence when we see so many others in our city who are clearly homosexual gag themselves for fear of exposure. But worst of all, we too often hear silence from our own lips, surrendering away our very own dignity.

The cage often looks inescapable. And we wonder sometimes if it may be wiser to just bear it all to our dying day, and take our fears, frustrations and futile hopes with us to our graves.

But some of us can’t do that. I can’t. If I did, all my parents’ and teachers’ efforts would have been in vain. I can do them no greater honour than to keep speaking about humanity over hypocrisy, honesty over hype.

I have discovered an exceptionally well-written blog today. He deals with multiple issues though – not just LGBT matters.

…Have an affair.”

I came across this mind-boggling advertisement somewhere on the internet today. The product being advertised is “The World’s Premier Discreet Dating Service with over 7,570,000 anonymous members”.

I will leave you with your thoughts now, whatever they might be. And in case my wife is reading this, “Honey, no, I am not their 7,570,001st anonymous member!”

Majority Pressure

(Photo © Jakarta Globe)

The Constitutional Court of Indonesia, an independent body which reviews existing and new laws passed by the Indonesian government and is supposed to uphold the principles of the Indonesian constitution has dealt a second blow in the space of a month to Indonesia’s pluralism and human rights – the basic tenets of the nation.

Around a month ago came the first strike when it upheld the controversial Anti-pornography bill, which by its vague, archaic, uncertain and misleading definitions and pronouncements opens up a Pandora’s box of misinterpretations and abuse that could threaten women’s rights and minority rights.

Anti-Porn Statute to Remain Law of the Land in Indonesia – Jakarta Globe
Constitutional Court upholds divisive pornography law – The Jakarta Post

And now the second blow by refusing to revise or scrap the 1965 Blasphemy Law which forbids non-mainstream interpretations of the six officially recognised religions. The Law has been routinely used to harass and intimidate minority Islamic sects as well as critics of Islamic hard-liners. The appeal for review of the law was filed by none other than the late former President Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid amongst others(including several human rights organizations and progressive Islamic scholar Siti Musdah Mulia).

Constitutional Court Keeps Faith With Indonesia’s Controversial Blasphemy Law – Jakarta Globe
Court upholds Blasphemy Law – The Jakarta Post

The decision though unjust, is hardly surprising as it in line with the wishes of the Muslim majority. There were vigorous demonstrations and attacks on the petitioners by hard-line Muslim groups, including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI). As Poengky Indarti of Imparsial, The Indonesian Human Rights Monitor remarked, “The dictatorship of the majority has contributed [to the decision].”

Another factor could well be the composition itself of the panel of judges of the Constitutional Court. Eyebrows were raised when the replacements of two judges in the Court were announced in January – the replacements were both from strong Islamic backgrounds, one a former deputy head of the Religious High Court in Yogyakarta and the other the deputy head of the Islamic Crescent Star Party (PBB). This was controversial and insensitive as one of the judges being replaced was the only Protestant Christian in the panel.

Critic Questions Selection of Constitutional Court Judges – Jakarta Globe

The lone remaining non-Muslim judge in the nine member panel also happens to be a woman, thus truly making her the only voice of the non-majority in the panel. And not surprisingly she was the only dissenting judge in the panel for both of the controversial judgements above. Dr. Maria Farida Indrati is a former Professor of Law from the University of Indonesia and a Catholic.

Maria Farida Indrati: Feminine voice of reason – The Jakarta Post

Dr. Maria Farida Indrati

(Photo © The Jakarta Post)

The woman was gang-raped by the three Sharia policeman during her interrogation… the issue began when Sharia police officers were conducting patrol on the night of Jan. 8, and found a couple on the side of the PTPN-1 Langsa ring road. The police brought the pair to the Sharia police office in Langsa. The suspects then questioned the couple in relation to violating the 2003 Sharia Public Indecency Bylaw.

She is a university student.

It had to happen sooner or later innit?! What happens next? Let’s wait and watch…

One challenge is from the self-styled Yoga guru Baba Ramdev. In his defence he says,

“Homosexual relationships, if encouraged, would bring population growth of a country to a halt…”

Well, I for one can’t see the harm in that! The current rate of population growth, by virtue of which we are going to overtake China as the most populous nation in the world, has never been something any Indian needs to be proud of. When I was growing up it was an evil that was straining the resources of our country. None of us growing up in the 80s can forget the birth control ads that were beamed continuously on our only television channel then, Doordarshan, the national channel – ‘Hum do, hamare do’ (We two, ours two!) was the motto of the 80s. But somewhere amidst the economic liberalisation of the 90s that message was lost and our huge population was looked upon advantageously as a huge market. All that makes economic sense I know, but in the long run it does not and will never make common sense. The resources are always limited and if the demand on them keeps growing there will be a point where they will fail to meet the hungry mouths that await them. It does already happen in India – let us not forget that our emerging super-power still has to face the embarrassing fact of starvation deaths. The problem is that, though the logic of birth control by now has been firmly etched upon the minds of the Indian urban middle class, the rural areas are still caught in the age-old paradox of safety in numbers.

I digress! To come back to Baba Ramdev, he says,

“…there is high risk of exposure of a large chunk of population to dangerous sexually transmitted disease including HIV/AIDS.”

A false interpretation again. As Ashok Row Kavi, a leading gay rights activist and the editor of India’s first magazine for gays, asserts, “…the ruling will help in HIV prevention. Gay men can now visit doctors and talk about their problems.” And may I add, without fear. Openness has never hurt any society. It is only when you create walls and barriers around something which is universal and natural that you damage society.

The other law suit is from astrologer Suresh Kumar Kaushal. I will not digress and go into the denunciation of astrology, a pseudo-science and a slur on civilised society, like I did with Ramdev’s comment on India’s population growth! I will rather focus on his utterances with regards to his legal challenge. He says,

“Even animals don’t indulge in such activities.”

Now that is an untruth, if there ever was one! I had referenced this article in an earlier post which clearly states that instances of homosexuality has been observed in other animals. Do read it and I will rest my case!

A court in the Indian capital, Delhi, has ruled that homosexual intercourse between consenting adults is not a criminal act.

In an earlier post on an Indonesian rock musician’s theory on homosexuality, I had written how strange it is to hold on to such prejudices in this day and age when Science has already shown that there are possibly ‘biological explanations for sexual orientation across species — including humans’. This bold judgement coming from my ultra-conservative country is sure to do some justice to this much maligned group of our fellow human beings.

[UPDATE: Loved what Gautam Bhan says in Indian Express:

"This judgment should be seen by all of us, gay or straight, no matter what we think of sexuality and homosexuality, as a victory for a secular, democratic, constitutional and free India. We should all be proud."

]

The rumblings of protest from religious bodies have begun – my only prayer is that they do not grow loud enough to drown out the voice of rationality.

On a similar note, watch the movie Milk if you haven’t. It is the story of Harvey Milk, an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. Sean Penn in the title role does a beautiful job in portraying such a sensitive character and rightfully earned a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.

“They have the right to ignore me.
But I too have the right not to vote for them to represent me.
My vote is not a gift. I cast my vote with a hope that they will fight for me and for people like me.
Yes, one vote from one woman probably means nothing.
But they should remember: In Indonesia, there are millions of us and we all can think.”

Dr. George Tiller’s murder is unquestionably outrageous and frustrating and I have been keenly following the story like most of you, as it further polarizes the two sides of the abortion debate. It is undeniably a most difficult issue to easily decide on your colours. As a rationalist I lean towards pro-choice but I am aware how difficult it is to determine where life begins – in the womb, or later. And to me that is the pivot around which the whole debate rotates – for if we say life begins in the womb, then taking it is murder.

“…The MRI reminded me of my other son’s. He’s autistic, and when he was three he’d had an MRI that also showed abnormalities. …we couldn’t handle having another special needs kid. Psychically, we just couldn’t handle it. …I cry all the time, and that will be for the rest of my life. Because I really, really wanted that baby.”