Amit Varma of India Uncut says:

July 2, 2009—mark this day. It’s a big day in the history of independent India because today the Delhi High Court effectively decriminalized homosexuality. As of today, it is no longer illegal to be gay in India. I’ve often written about how India gained its independence in 1947, but Indians weren’t free in some many different ways. Well, notch one up for individual freedom. […] This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have suddenly become an enlightened society. There will still be much homophobia, stereotypes of gay people will abound in popular culture[..]. But at least it isn’t illegal any more. How big is that?

The Rational Fool quotes from the ruling:

It's a victory for secular democracy in India. In a landmark judgement, the Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah of the Delhi High Court, along with Dr. Justice S. Muralidhar, ruled in favor of the petitioner, Naz Foundation, and held that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in its current form was violative of the of the constitutional provisions of Article 21, Article 14, and Article 15, “insofar it criminalizes consensual sexual acts of adults in private”. The ruling brings cheers not only to the LGBT community, but also to anyone who believes that liberty and equality before law cannot be held hostage to irrational beliefs and values in perpetuity.

Suriya Subramanian leaves a comment at Blogbharti to say:

I’d like to draw attention to the part of the ruling, which I think is the most important, but no one is talking about. The court did not just decriminalize homosexuality, but they went way ahead and offered people protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Harini Calamur at POV says:

About time. The State has no business to peek into our bedroom. This is not just about decriminalizing homosexuality – it is about ensuring everyone’s right to privacy.

Blogger ??! writing at This is a Title asks:

You hear that? That's the sound a stupid law makes when it's finally overturned. […] Poor cops though, one less easy money-making scheme taken away from them.

And ??! reminds us that not all the responses to the ruling have been positive, suggesting readers look at the Rediff commentboard. Here is an example of the opinions stated there, by Puneet Gera:

First time in life, I despite being Indian, accept Pakistan is a better country than India, at least gay sex is not legalised there. They have maintained their cultural values. I salute you Pakistan for your good values.

Szerelem is thrilled:

My friend informs me, via her lawyer brother, that while the judgement was passed by the Delhi High Court it is applicable all over the country, till overturned by specific states. This (a) makes the verdict even more awesome and (b) makes me wonder if/ when/ where it will be overturned, though hopefully not at all, because the judgement was way too long coming. Also, &#@$ you to the mullahs, right wing hindutva types and general assholes who seem to populate discussion forums in this country and are decrying this.

However, Dilnavaz Bamboat at Ultra Violet believes there is plenty more to be fought for:

While the decriminalization of consensual gay sex is indeed a victory for those rooting for orientation-equality, constricted notions of propriety continue to be imposed on basic choices deemed even remotely threatening to social fabric. A case in point being denim. I kid you not. Jeans, according to the Uttar Pradesh Principals Association, may well be the root of degenerate teen behavior. Scrap the blue stuff and voila! We’ll have model citizens.
The two may be seemingly unrelated but they point to a constant struggle to assert our right to self-expression and fundamental choices. And remind us that it’s far from over. Self-determination, for the most part, is still sitting pretty in the latter half of a dictionary.

For example, a Kenyan blogger Pater Nostra has a friend whose pictures were posted and debated on Wananchi Forums. He exclaims:

I am naturally pissed that the audacity of the member of Wananchiforums.com (to post such threatening and victimizing articles) has been entertained and of the administrators to allow such to be posted. Should anything happen to her, both the member and the administrators of the website have to blame. They have made a person vulnerable to attack, abuse, and assault which is morally wrong and goes against her fundamental rights to protection and security. Her life is in danger.

Keguro, an English professor and a blogger reveals the underlying truth about how homosexuals are named and shamed all over the Internet. “The politics of outing” is the title of his post. While most leaders are squirming on their seats over it, others are trying to smoke them out and stamping on their rights.

He blogs about the traumatic ordeal one has to face while still not comfortable with their sexuality:

Within the context of outing, one’s individual wishes and political stance are subsumed by another narrative. One is positioned as a homosexual, hailed as such, and must respond within the structure so created, a structure in which non-response is not possible. One need not respond to one’s accusers, but one responds to those who know one: family, friends, even to the email that offers information and sympathy.

He quotes a gender and sexuality author, Lauren Berlant:

It is this cluster of desires around one that I term “the political,” borrowing from Lauren Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism. To be outed in a country that provides no official spaces or languages for recognizing outing is to become subject to a host of desires, some friendly, some not, some lustful, some not. One becomes marked. Many years ago, when I first came out, my mother composed a grand narrative of my life that, in retrospect, sounds like something from Austin Powers. I was a mad party animal bottom. Her terms, not mine. When I asked how I found time to study as a mad party animal bottom, she replied, quite rationally, that I was a mad party animal bottom from Friday through Sunday. (In truth, I went out Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and was relatively asexual, which I made up for in that glorious year I turned 24. Ahhh, 24!) (A confession, happy now?)

He concludes:

I have written, previously, about the dangers of homophobic discourse within a space that does not have any homosexual discourse. In such a space, outing becomes impossible as an affirmative gesture. Yet, isn’t it precisely in such impossible spaces that we have become possible?

Samuel Delaney writes that “coming out” used to mean coming out into a homosexual community, not as a performance of truth to gazing heterosexuals. I do not use the word community much, and do not trust it. But it can be a powerful thing to imagine, and wonderful to belong.

Such belonging might be one necessary, useful, and pleasurable afterlife.

Two months ago, Keguro blogged about a woman who had her head smashed with a beer bottle in a club because of her sexual orientation:

[A Kenyan lesbian] was leaving Madd House on the said morning with a friend – (anonymous), when, as they were walking through the exit, a woman shouted out behind them “ma lesbians”…. [The Kenyan lesbian] didn’t recognize the woman and they got into a verbal confrontation during which the woman hit her with her bag and went off to go back upstairs. [The Kenyan lesbian] and (anonymous) followed the woman, later identified to them as Constance Sirikwa Rukia, and saw her being hidden in the changing rooms by the bouncers.

[The Kenyan lesbian] went to ask the bouncers why they were hiding the woman when they should be kicking her out for disturbing them. The bouncers held each of [The Kenyan lesbian’s] hands and attempted to throw her out. Upon seeing that [The Kenyan lesbian] was being held by the bouncers, the woman then hit [The Kenyan lesbian] on the head with a bottle that she’d been holding and she fell down, bleeding heavily.

What most bloggers found surprising was how the security guards were willing to sacrifice core principles of citizen protection, making them less safe. An anonymous reader on Nostra's blog says:

These people are bad. What they have done is wrong and they should not be allowed anymore to do this. Why are they doing this? I cant believe that such hate exist unless they do it for the sake of publicity. They have disseminated the article to many fora and I think that is their intention. They want it to be known. Its wrong. Pouline is strong.

Nigeria introduced a bill in 2007 banning same sex marriage. According to Rod 2.0 the bill is the most comprehensive homophobic legislation ever proposed in the world. Early this year homosexuals in Nigeria stormed the National Assembly seeking for legislation that will guarantee the protection.

Lifestyle, culture and religion have become the invisible fence to many homosexuals in Africa barring them from their freedom of sexual expression. A Kenyan blogger, Wilde Yearnings, was quite optimistic after US President Barack Obama officially declared June being a gay pride month and decriminalizing of homosexuality all over the world earlier this month. He posted Obama's speech on his blog:

My Administration has partnered with the LGBT community to advance a wide range of initiatives. At the international level, I have joined efforts at the United Nations to decriminalize homosexuality around the world…NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists.

Naughy Feeling commented on the post:

It is great our comrades in America are getting recognition. In our dear country we can't stick our necks in the sand and tell ourselves all will be well. The gigantous task ahead demands of us that we kid not ourselves of the responsibility ahead of us. It may require sacrifices but all for the greater good. May God bless LGBT kenya n give us strength for what is ahead. But hey, look on the bright side, we can still have fun at it.

But will culture, religion and lifestyle factors derail the decriminalisation of homosexuality in most African countries or will it be as Wilde Yearnings described “meanwhile in Kenya… The struggle continues…”?

It has been said that homosexuality is a lifestyle adapted by Africans from the West, SebaSpace a Ugandan blogger tries to points out that his “sexuality” and “him ” are one, that homosexuality cannot be a lifestyle because for him to be involved with someone it has to be sexually, emotionally and spiritually bringing the fact that homosexuality is a physiological function too.

SebaSpace has been on a constant war with an anti-gay blogger also from Uganda and the war is always revolving around religion, culture and lifestyle. This created a stir in the LGBT blogosphere and another gay Kenyan blogger wrotes a post to answer the three questions The Red Pepper had asked. The questions were:

1. If you try to drink water through the ear, you naturally spoil it because it was created by God to do the hearing function. That's physical harm.

2. when they discovered you were gay. You know very well how we love having grandchildren in Africa. Imagine what goes on in your parents' minds to know that you will never give them grandchildren (I am assuming that you a die-hard gay man but if you are bi, please forgive me). So that is emotional harm.

3. Spiritual harm. You tamper with God's plan of procreation. Understand that the main reason of creating the sexual organs was procreation purposes. For you in an attempt to be very creative, you put your organs at the disposal of pleasure only (I hope it is fun).If you have radical parents, they can start questioning God as to why he gave them such a child. I know parents of a gay boy who visited scores of witchdoctors thinking that their child had been bewitched. I can give you as many reasons as possible. I hope you are an objective gentleman who looks at things objectively.
With so much hate from all sides, will the African Leaders put their priorities in order from all the pressure by the UN, IMF and World Bank and speak out for the sexual minorities or will still hold them in this invisible cage?

His answers:

The Ugandan rag called Red Pepper has been engaging Afro gay, a fellow Gay blogger from Uganda in arguments regarding the situation on Homosexuality in Uganda. Follow this link to see the full post. Recently, the editor of red pepper wrote to Afro arguing that he (Afro) was causing Physical, emotional and Spiritual harm to his family by being gay.

I promised Afro that I will write my responses to the Editor on my blog and link back with him. I have taken their questions, edited without altering the message and I have responded to each question.

I tend to disagree with you when you say that homos have never done anybody physical, emotional or spiritual harm.

Without any prejudice I want to tell you that they are guilty of all the three accounts.

Count 1. If you try to drink water through the ear, you naturally spoil it because it was created by God to do the hearing function. That's physical harm.

Red pepper has made three elementary mistakes (assumptions) 1) The common one that homosexuality is equal to sodomy (their shallow analogy of the ear above) 2) Following number 1 above that sodomy is practiced only by homosexuals and 3) That all homosexuals engage in anal sex.

I will deal with the last one first. Is the paper saying they are ok with someone with homosexual orientation as long as they don’t engage in sex? Have they ever heard of celibate gay people and gay people who don’t engage in anal sex? Well, I have and know both types.

It's worth noting, that from the very beginning sodomy and homosexuality were two categorically separate things. The correct definition of sodomy–then and now–is simply non-procreative sex, whether practiced by heterosexuals or homosexuals. It includes oral sex, masturbation, mutual masturbation, contraceptive sex, coitus interruptus, and anal sex–any sex in which semen does not find its way into a uterus.

The anal sex thing is one elephant in the room, but it's not an inherent part of being gay, it isn't an activity engaged in exclusively by gay people.

SebaSpace refused to answer the questions from Red Pepper. He gives reasons for his refusal:

If you look at the e-mail below, the editor of the Red Pepper has valid questions he is asking and, ordinarily, I would answer them – indeed I have answered these questions over the years more times than I have had hot dinners.

The problem for me now is I don’t believe the people asking the questions are sincere. Rightly or wrongly, I think all they are looking for is material to feed their tabloid frenzy and so I have refused to provide the answers. That said, I think it would be okay for other bloggers to attempt to answer them on their blogs or wherever as they are legitimate.

Here is the e-mail I got from the Red Pepper and the questions they posed [heavily emended for clarity]

Thanks for the reply.

Well, you have not answered Phiona's question and I am sure she will maintain her opinion. I also have a feeling that you don't have an answer for it. The times I have interacted with you I have discovered that you are a clever man who cannot answer a question unless you are sure the answer is convincing.Again I tend to disagree with you when you say that homos have never done anybody physical, emotional or spiritual harm.
Without any prejudice I want to tell you that they are guilty of all the three accounts.

While gay and lesbian bloggers in Africa use blogs to express themselves freely, there are also anti gay bloggers targeting them. One of them, Blake, had a blog called Kenyans Against Gays before it was suspended for violating Blogger's Terms of Service. Kenyan Gay wrote about the suspension:

A couple of years ago, a dude called Blake started this blog and I think the first thing he did was to announce its launch on my blog. Over time, that blog grew with articles explaining why he felt he should take a position against us etc.

However, from propagating his position against homosexuality in recent times he moved to actually calling for gay people in Kenya to be killed. I have been alerted by a reader that the blog has been suspended whilst being investigated for possible blogger rules violation. I suspect it is because of his latest position that was quite militant.

I am a believer in freedom of expression and actually think that blog helped expose that there are some willing to propagate hate to get their point across. But I draw the line when someone advocates for homosexuals to be killed.

I think his blog served us more than it aimed to destroy us. This is because we have many Kenyan gay blogs and Blake used to visit all of them and in the comments section try to drive traffic to his site. If you followed links, you would find that very many of the comments were from people who attempted to engage him intellectually on gay issues. Unfortunately, there were those usual vile comments from both sides with most insults coming from him. He was a troll on my blog until I decided to ignore him.

When you visit Kenyans Against Gays blog you get the following message:

This blog is in violation of Blogger's Terms of Service and is open to authors only

However, Blake went on to start another blog using Wordpress.

Collaborative Testing: a leaking dam

Current versions only support Windows; effective only when used in conjunction with Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, it has no effect when used with Firefox. The harmful information screened by the software includes politically-related harmful information, and the software relies on non-conventional methods to install, also ineffective within Firefox, closing the browser and adding the website address onto a banned list without confirmation. In Internet Explorer, the software's ability to classify clearly political content as “harmful information” is unreliable; for pornographic content, Green Dam is able to make relatively accurate assessments. When used with Firefox, however, the software shows no response.

Deep blue sea, upon testing the program, asked:

如果用户在使用过程中由于兼容问题出现了影响正常功能使用，或出现了网络隐私泄密，网络银行被盗，等等重大损失，请问工信部负责赔偿吗!

从上述测试来看，此软件对系统资源的占用是巨大的，会严重影响到一些用户的正常使用。会另一些不熟悉电脑网络设置的人群深受其害。

Over blocking

ESWN translated some teacher's comments on the filter software from KDnet:

- I don't want to discuss whether the functionalities of Green Dam are good or bad, but it is a nuisance because of all the upgrading that goes on. We are a rural school, and we are using rural distance learning equipment (namely, Lenovo computers). If we install Green Dam, then we cannot do simultaneous network broadcasts or hard disk protection. Even if Green Dam guarantees safe Internet usage, how are we to maintain the software on our computers? Our computer instructor is going to sit around all day to watch Green Dam being upgraded one computer at a time. I am going to faint! Our supervisory leaders must not know how to use computers!

- Let me say something here. We were ordered to install the software. So I have to come to this website and curse. After we installed the software, many normal websites are banned. For example, it is normal for students to like games such as 4399, but not any more … many news reports have certain normal words but they are banned … for example, when reports that there is a campaign against pornographic websites, the software bans the story because the term “pornographic websites” was used. Don't tell me how great the software technology is, because this is a piece of junk. When we need to look up some course-related material, there is always some provocative advertisements on the pages so we can't access them anymore. Why doesn't the state just ban those advertisements directly? I want to curse someone out …

As the keyword filter list includes words such as “touch” and “play” and the graphic detection is set to identify the proportion of skin color in a picture, funny results come out (also from ESWN's post):

- Can I determine the content of the text filtering? Today, a teacher posted an exam question which talks about “students playing touch-ball game.” The Word document was shut down. I spent a long time trying to determine the cause. This was really depressing. It will be a lot of work dealing these kinds of things in the future.

- How much flesh color does it take to make something “pornography”? I went on the Internet to check out some animal photos. A lovely little naked pig was sent onto the black list. Pitiful little pig! I was curious, so I looked up some photos of naked African women. Oh, they were not censored!

All LGBT content banned

Jzyg found out that all LGBT contents are banned :

一款绿色的流氓软件，把同性恋和色情，暴力等同，安装后默选项将会自动屏蔽所有包含有同性恋内容的网站，经测试国内知名的同性恋网站,如爱白、淡蓝、夫夫网等安装该软件后均会导致无法正常访问。测试还发现，只要网页中含有同性恋、gay、lesbian等与同性恋有关的词汇及经软件自动判别图片中“肉色 ”过多，和两个同性亲昵的动作出现后，网站即被屏蔽，无法正常显示。被屏蔽后，网站被自动列入软件黑名单内，该台电脑将无法再次打开此网站。

Government budget and procedural justice

Given all its flaws and not so reliable filter result, the question followed is why the MIIT would spend more than 41 million yuans to pay the software company, Jinhui Technologies, one year license fee?

The company's software promotion picture (below) seems to celebrate the fact that “Green Dam” is uphold by the government and taxpayer's money (represented by the two hands):

Indeed, the project is in partnership with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance and State Council Information Department. However, many people questioned the lack of consultation and monitoring of such partnership. A commentary written by Wang Lin, a law professor, in ifeng pointed out that:

工信部如此大手笔撒钱是否合乎政府财政支出的程序正义？从报道中可知，所谓供“全社会免费使用”，实则也是纳税人自己埋单，因为工信部等几部委使用中央财政资金4170万元人民币买断这套软件的一年服务。照工信部推行“绿坝-花季护航”的决心，应该不会只用一年就撤退，下一年度是否还要花费数以千万计的巨额资金购买软件服务？这样的大手笔，是否需要列入政府预算，接受人大代表的审议？

这种以行政强制来推行的软件捆绑，还需接受《反垄断法》的拷问。

Political concern

Apart from technical and procedural concern, fulue highlighted the software's latent political implications:

人们对政治层面的担忧就更多了，北京对互联网的管制是司马昭之心——路人皆知。除了秘密筑起臭名昭著的防火墙（GFW）外，更挂羊头卖狗肉，时不时借助一些运动进行整治。比如数月前刮起的那场声势浩大的“整顿互联网低俗之风”运动，运动过后中国的互联网依旧低俗，但是一些言辞尖锐的网站和博客却在运动中倒下。这就是北京理解的“低俗”！

而现在，又要强制推广一个所谓的过滤色情网站的软件，而所过滤的内容又不提交独立的第三方审核，影响这么广泛的政策出台前又不经过社会的广泛讨论。不免令人质疑，在北京看来色情是否也包括政治呢？或许在北京的眼里的，政治色情比肉体色情更可怕。

Other related articles:

Rebecca MacKinnon - China's “Green Dam Youth Escort” software, Original government document ordering “Green Dam” software installation, Green Dam filtering software scorned by many Chinese.
Imagethief - Why I'm not in a tizzy over China's new Internet filtering software