Daijiworld Media Network
New Delhi, Jul 5: Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad termed gay sex as an 'unnatural disease' during a national convention of zilla parishad chairpersons and mayors on HIV/AIDS.
Azad said that the Indian Society should fight against such diseases that have come to the country from foreign shores. He added that the number of gay people in India is increasing by the day causing harm to the Indian Society.
Men who have sex with men (MSM) are tough to be identified whereas female sex workers can easily be identified and reached out as they live in clusters, he added.
Azad's comments have created uproar in the civil society including the National Aids Control Organization (NACO) which has been reporting to the union health minister.
Faiza of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community (LGBT) found it utterly outrageous for a health minister to make such a comment.
She said that when a country is growing economically, it needs to grow spiritually as well as culturally. She termed Azad's comments as 'prehistoric'.
Prince Manvendra Gohil said, "A person at his post now needs to get back to the basics and study science. Art depicting homosexuality is present in our temples. The diagnostic statistic manual of USA states that it is not a disorder mentally or physically and is natural".
A gay activist said that the act is natural and healthy if done with protection, and any kind of sex without protection is unhealthy.
NACO has been working in order to identify MSMs and give them their rightful place in the society. Targeted interventions (TI) have been set up to cater to their needs.
According to a surveillance data, 4.2% of sexually active males in India are believed to have sex with other men with Chennai, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Orissa reporting the highest number of such cases.
The UNAIDS report of 2010 on the epidemic found that among the high-risk group that got HIV infection in India last year — 9.2% were intravenous drug users, MSMs (7.3%) and female sex workers (4.9%).
The report said that MSMs are those who indulge in high risk sexual behaviour with multiple partners and sometimes involving in commercial sex activities.
Experts say that the MSM community are at a higher risk of acquiring AIDS.
It is learnt that ever since Article 377 was decriminalized in India by the Delhi high court legalizing consensual sexual relation among adults of the same gender, many more MSM's have started visiting the TI sites.