'Hinduism does not condemn homosexuality'

The Hindu Council in United Kingdom on Friday welcomed the Delhi High Court's historic judgment, which decriminalised consensual homosexual relations, and said Hinduism does not condemn gay people.

"The British Hindu homosexual community will welcome the news that their brethren in India are now able to enjoy the same freedom as they do here," said Anil Bhanot, general secretary of Hindu Council UK.

Bhanot said the Hindu scripts describe the homosexual condition to be a "biological one, and although the scripture gives guidance to parents on how to avoid procreating a homosexual child, it does not condemn the child as unnatural."

"Hinduism prescribes 16 ceremonies to mark each major stage in one's life span. We would usually observe the birth, name, adolescence, marriage, retirement and death ceremonies but there is a little known ceremony called the 'insemination' ceremony or the Garbhadan Sanskaar, which I am sure nobody observes nowadays. This insemination ceremony talks about homosexuality," informed Bhanot.

The ancient saints or prophets advocated that there are two elements, fire (agni for sun) and water (soma for moon) which determine the sex of a child. "Of the 16 days from the end of the menstruation cycle, sexual intercourse for the purposes of procreation was forbidden on certain days as during these days the menses may continue," he said.

The theory goes that if insemination takes place in the night of an even number from six to 16, a male child will be born whilst on an odd number of fifth, seventh, ninth and 15th night, a female child will be born, Bhanot added.

"The scripture further forbids insemination on the 11th or the 13th night after the end of the menstruation cycle, because then it says the child will be homosexual," he said. According to the scripture, the sex of a child is determined by whether the fire element is dominant or the water element is dominant.

Thus during those even nights, the fire element dominates giving a male conception and during those odd nights, the water element gives a female conception. However, if the fire element equals the water element, then a homosexual conception takes place, Bhanot said.

"The point here is that the homosexual nature is part of the natural law of God; it should be accepted for what it is, no more and no less. Hindus are generally conservative but it seems to me that in ancient India, they even celebrated sex as an enjoyable part of procreation, where priests were invited for ceremonies in their home to mark the beginning of the process," he said.

In fact, King Dasharath, who fathered Lord Rama around 2100 BC, had one of the most lavish insemination ceremonies.

"Homosexuals are full human beings, who in Hinduism even worship their own deity, the Mother Goddess Bahuchara, for their spiritual link to the Absolute Brahm," he said.