How is it that a religious objection to freeing India’s LGBT community can pass muster in a democracy? There is a self-contradiction involved in religious bodies objecting to the admission of a curative petition against Section 377. Religious organisations function freely because the Constitution protects the citizen’s right to both freedom of expression and free speech.

Among these is the right to not only adopt the faith of one’s choice but also to propagate it. By denying sexual choice to the LGBT community the ACA and MPLB undermine the source of their own freedoms, the Constitution. Of course, it is not for the first time that we have witnessed the expression of intolerance by purohits, mullahs and padres. Usually they suppress women. This time they have united in their fear of sexual freedom and hatred of the other that dares to pursue it. The more important question is, how it is that we have come to tolerate such intolerance?

The origins of this inconsistency lie in the colonialist’s construction of India.