Various church organizations of the North East have voiced out against the recent Supreme Court ruling on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code decriminalising homosexuality.
As per Supreme Court judgment, consensual gay sex is not a crime and Section 377 violated the fundamental right to equality. However, Churches have said that “what is legally upheld need not be morally acceptable”.
Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC), general secretary Rev. Dr. Z. Keyho told the Times of India that they “have nothing against the LGBTQIA community. However, we have to reiterate that homosexuality is a sin.”
In this regard, he said that the NBCC would be holding its executive meeting at Kohima on October 31 “to come up with a comprehensive document to discourage homosexuality”.
It will also discuss the SC order and its impact on the religious practices of the state. “Forming guidelines to uphold the teachings of the Bible is a moral imperative. Anything that goes against god’s design cannot be encouraged,” Rev. Dr. Z. Keyho said.
On Monday, Chakhesang Baptist Church Council (CBCC) declared that it would never support such an unholy practice which was morally unacceptable.
The council further laid down an assertion that that homosexual acts and behaviour between consenting adults were morally unacceptable because it violated the aim of human sexuality which, it said, was procreation and the union of love, accomplished in the union between men and women in marriage. “…even if the homosexual acts are now legalised, it is not morally acceptable or justified. What is legal is not equal to moral acceptability” CBCC executive secretary Rev. Dr. Vezopa Tetseo stated.
In Mizoram, the Mizoram Kohhran Hruaitute Committee, a conglomerate of 14 church bodies, said the section (377) should never have been scrapped. It said that homosexuality and lesbianism should continue to be criminalized as before.
ABAM red flags SC decriminalising homosexuality: Ao Baptist Church Association (ABAM) has joined the growing chorus in Nagaland against Supreme Court’s recent verdict scrapping Section 377(a) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and thereby decriminalising homosexuality.
Asserting that it disagreed with the apex court’s verdict, the association warned that it would not tolerate if any of its members indulged in acts that were “unscriptural and unnatural”. The stand of the church body was reaffirmed during its executive committee meeting held on October 15 and 16 by adopting a resolution in this regard.
As Biblically-based association, ABAM asserted that it would not tolerate and condone homosexuality, never wink at sin and never condone or agree with this activity, but deal accordingly without any compromise.
In a statement, ABAM executive secretary Rev Dr Mar Atsongchanger, said that even before the dawn of Christianity in Nagaland, except for head hunting practices, unnatural and inhuman practices were never witnessed. He pointed out that the church considered man and woman with clear distinction, adding that transgender, bi-gender and homosexuality were never known in Nagaland, but might have happened elsewhere and considered abnormal and an abomination.
And after the advent of Christianity in 1872 at the initiative of American Baptist missionary Dr Edward Clark, people walked under the guidance of God’s words, the body added.
However, though Supreme Court on September 6 ruled that application of Section 377 to consensual homosexual sex between adults was unconstitutional, “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary”, ABAM pointed out that Section 377 remained relating to sex with minors, non-consensual sexual acts and bestiality. The association said allowing homosexuality and same-sex marriage had left many good citizens of India, irrespective of their religion, sect and colour saddened and infuriated.
Quoting the Bible extensively, the association said God created only two sexes – male and female – and when He created the first marriage institution, it was one man and one woman.
Citing Genesis 2:24 (“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”), ABAM explained that God did it that way because that’s how God wanted His creation to remain. Anything outside God’s plan for sexuality was a perversion orchestrated by the greatest pervert in the universe Satan, it asserted.
The association cited few more references from the Bible on homosexuality to buttress its claim: i) Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them”; ii) I Corinthians 6:10: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abuser of themselves with mankind”; iii) I Timothy 1:9 & 10: “Knowing that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawlessness and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners … the sexual immoral, men who practice homosexuality…”
ABAM pointed out that in all these Bible verses, these were all abominations before God and exasperated Him deeply. But, it added that the trend in which the world was going today was proving Ecclesiastics 7:29 true: “Lo, this only have I found, that God had made man upright; they have sought out many inventions”.
It said homosexuality and same-sex marriages could be burgeoning today, but reminded everyone that when God would call, he would call by the gender He gave at birth.
Mentioning that Christians treated every person with love, ABAM stressed that it would be polite while disagreeing with unusual things.
“We might be cast as a bigot or weirdo or may be mocked, insulted and threatened for merely disagreeing with the movement. But we respect the word of God which says ‘Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!’ (Isaiah 5:20)”, the statement added.
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