SAME SEX MARRIAGE An Old and New Issue in Asia Honourable Ajit Prakash Shah, India and Section 377, UN Development Programme, Punitive Laws, Human Rights and HIV prevention among men who have sex with men in Asia Pacific: High Level Dialogue Report (original) (raw)
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Despite its apparent gay friendliness, Japanese society has witnessed few public debates or social movements in support of same-sex marriage. It seems that Japanese scholars and activists are only just beginning to advocate the legal protection of homosexual couples. Although Japan has witnessed a few recent developments toward same-sex marriage, an anti-same sex marriage perspective seems to dominate, even among Japanese scholars and activists who are gay and lesbian themselves.In order to understand Japans slow progress toward same-sex marriage, this article examines the legality of same-sex marriage in Japan, Japans apparent lack of the political and historical progress of same-sex marriage in the West, and Japanese societal and cultural features including gay adoption, invisibility and heterosexism at work and in academia. This article also compares the current debates on the legal protection of same-sex couples in Japan and Japanese feminist criticism of the Japanese family, to explain the prevalence of the anti-same sex marriage position. Further, with the notion of familial homophobia by Shulman (2009), the traditional Japanese family is defined as the grounds for homophobia. Lastly, the possibility of legalizing same-sex marriage in Japan is discussed.
Homosexuality In India – The Invisible Conflict
2008
This research paper analysis the homosexual marriages in the Indian context as an invisible conflict which is successfully kept under cover. It also attempts to describe and explain various aspects of Homosexuality including the evolution, the reasons, the societal attitude and reactions towards such relations. The author also draws insight from the countries where homosexual marriages are legalized and also highlights their outcome out of legalising Homosexual relations. At the end taking fair and strong arguments both in favour and in against the author concludes about the possibility of legalizing homosexual marriages in India based on empirical and theoretical facts and evidences. Homosexuality In India – The Invisible Conflict The institution of marriage in society is generally regarded as extending only to male-female relationships, although most marriage statutes use gender-neutral language. Where as, many examples of acceptance of homosexual marriages has only been recently ...
An analysis of what LGBTI issues are prominent in various countries in Asia, followed by an updated analysis of moves to recognition of same-sex relationships in Asia, notably in Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan. Paper was presented at the Asian Law Schools Conference in Beijing.
Buddhism and Homosexuality: an overview.
2016
Master Hsing Yun, founder and former abbot of the Fo Guang Shan school, has said: People often ask me what I think about homosexuality. They wonder, is it right, is it wrong? The answer is, it is neither right nor wrong. It is just something that people do. If people are not harming each other, their private lives are their own business; we should be tolerant of them and not reject them. (Sujato, 2012, paragraph 8) This reflects well the position most consistent with both early Buddhist thought and the core values of Buddhism as a whole. Sexual orientation is no moral issue. As Hsing Yun's statement shows, a main criterion for assessing morality is whether or not behaviours create dukkha-pain or suffering. Here I will explore the relevance or irrelevance of homosexuality. Given length limitations, I will not attempt a general evaluation of Buddhism's view of sexuality. The discussion will revolve around the extent to which the various Buddhist traditions have regarded homosexuality as problematic and why, and whether such views are likely to remain significant today. This paper argues that the considerable tolerance that contemporary Buddhism exhibits towards homosexuality, compared to other world religions, is due to the fact that homosexuality per se is not problematic on Buddhist grounds-and particularly as we understand it today. As a consequence, Buddhism has not propagated a negative view of homosexuals, has never promoted their persecution (Harvey, 2000, p.434) and whenever it has met with a culture which accepts and embraces them, it has not resisted it. However, to what extent this means that "Buddhism has been for the most part neutral on the question of homosexuality," as Cabezón (1993, p.82) affirms, is someting to be explored. For under the categories of ubhatobyañjanaka and paṇḍaka, effeminate passive homosexuals-together with transgender people-have been banned ordination, and this is hardly 'neutral'. The truth in Cabezón's statement is that the more we go back to the early teachings, the less we find same-sex attraction being described as problematic in itself. As put by Zwilling (1992, p.209), "when homosexual behavior is not ignored in Indian Buddhist writings it is derogated much to the same degree as comparable heterosexual acts." As will be developed below, for monks and for nuns homosexual acts are either equally or less serious than heterosexual acts. And the teachings on sexual misconduct (kāmesu-micchācāra) for lay This paper was originally submitted as an essay for the MA in Buddhist Studies at the University of South Wales in 1 2016.
pp. 84--96. Suyana kindly translated an earlier version of the article. Emond then translated and revised the Prisma article with the help of Suyana's translation and adapted it for an English--speaking audience.] This article is intended to discuss homosexuality in Indonesian society as far as is known both from available references to date and from direct observations in the field. A survey will be made of how homosexual behavior and homosexuals have been regulated, perceived and treated by the general public in Indonesia.
The Concept of sexuality reflected in ancient Indian Culture: A Critical review
Modern India is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Excavations in the Indus Valley trace civilization there back for at least 5,000 years. India's cultural history includes prehistoric mountain cave paintings in Ajanta, the exquisite beauty of the Taj Mahal in Agra, the rare sensitivity and warm emotions of the erotic Hindu temple sculptures of the 9th-century Chandella rulers, and the Kutab Minar in Delhi. The seeming contradictions of Indian attitudes towards sex can be best explained through the context of history. India played a significant role in the history of sex, from writing the first literature that treated sexual intercourse as a science, to in modern times being the origin of the philosophical focus of new-age groups’ attitudes on sex.