SameSame.com.au ~ Inside Out Australia

Proud Day For Nepal

International News, By icemoka, 19th November, 2008

With so much attention being placed on the passing of Proposition 8 in California two weeks ago, perhaps a little should be paid to Nepal, where the apex court of the Himalayan republic have granted full rights to same sex couples.

“My eyes were filled with tears when I read the Supreme Court decision,” said Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal’s first publicly gay lawmaker and a gay rights icon in South Asia.

“We, the gay community of Nepal, are the most proud citizens,” Pant said.

Pant’s exultation came after the Supreme Court on Monday delivered full judgment regarding a ground-breaking verdict it had announced last year, recognising sexual minorities, who were among the most oppressed in conservative, patriarchal Nepali society, as being born such and entitled to all the rights and remedies all other Nepali citizens enjoyed.

In addition, the court has asked the Maoist government to form a seven-member committee to study same sex partnership and marriage acts in other countries and in turn recommend a similar act to the Nepal government.

Furthermore, the court asked the government – that is scheduled to declare a new constitution by 2010 – to ensure that the language of the new statute does not discriminate against the sexual minorities.

Transgenders, who have received much abuse in the past, also won out when the court ruled that crossdressing is not perversion but an individual’s freedom of expression.

Nepal’s gay community had received many rights in 2006 after the fall of King Gyanendra’s army-backed government which had clamped down on the community’s rights.

In August 2006, four months after the king’s exit as head of government, Pant’s gay rights organisation Blue Diamond Society supported the first publicly conducted gay wedding in Nepal.