Speaker: Hindu texts and local custom offer precedents for same-sex unions in India, colonial law introduced modern homophobia

Ruth, a lecturer and author, told an audience in Missoula that Hindu religious texts and customary marriage practices include precedents for same-sex unions and that modern legal and social hostility to such relationships largely stems from British colonial laws and later nationalist attitudes.

In a talk organized by the Outfield Alliance, Ruth said the British-era criminal provision — Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code — helped transform earlier, more varied cultural responses into a dominant modern homophobia. She described historical and literary examples, including a translated fourteenth-century story in which a divinely blessed relationship between two women results in a miraculous birth, and cited cases reported in Indian newspapers — including policewomen who married by Hindu rites and couples who took or threatened joint suicide when families rejected their unions.

Why it matters: the lecture linked religious, social and legal strands that shape contemporary debates about marriage and civil recognition in India. Ruth pointed to both constitutional nondiscrimination arguments and a second strategy…