When it comes to lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered people, last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage highlights the gulf between India and much of the democratic world. More than 150 years after it was introduced, a colonial-era Indian law continues to criminalize “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.” This effectively makes homosexuality illegal in India, aligning the country closer to Pakistan and Egypt than with the liberal democracies in Asia and the West.

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