One of the most reported issues in the U.S. media a few months ago, was the issue of Gay Marriage. On one side you had the mayor of San Francisco issuing what turned out to be illegal marriage certificates and on the other side you had the President calling on Congress to amend the most sacred of all democratic texts. The rights of homosexuals are increasingly becoming an important topic in South Asia as well. From SFGate.com:

Islamabad, Pakistan — One recent Sunday evening at midnight in a town near here, Kohsar Riaz sat down eagerly in her favorite living room chair for her weekly dose of ARY One World network’s “Drama Hour” and was instantly engrossed in the depressing tale of a hijra (cross-dresser) disowned by family and friends, desperate for acceptance and hopelessly in love with a young man who used him solely for money.

The young hijra, unable to understand why his love would spurn him after achieving business success, dies trying to chase down his love’s car.

At the funeral, attended almost exclusively by other hijra, the young cross-dresser’s grief-stricken parents beg for their dead son’s forgiveness. He was their only child, but they failed to protect or help him.

Tens of thousands of South Asian night owls who stayed up to watch the popular television show got a rare glimpse from the other side of one of the region’s most ostracized groups.

That’s new. A television program about homosexual love aired in an Islamic country.

The barriers are starting to fall, thanks to the bold efforts of a handful of satellite and private television channels like ARY One and Islamablad’s GEO TV, both owned and operated by South Asians, that have started in the last three years.

GEO produces a show, “Uljan Suljan” (Problem Solving), where distraught Pakistanis can call, e-mail or fax anonymously for help from the show’s panel of doctors, social workers and psychologists. Since starting late last year, “Uljan Suljan” has become one of GEO’s top five shows.

“That discussion is actually beginning to happen,” Qureshi believes, “is a watershed moment for Pakistan.”

But all is not progressing forward in South Asia. SM reader Seyd sends us an article about the newest court ruling across the border in India:

The high court in the Indian capital Delhi has dismissed a legal petition that sought to legalise homosexuality.

The petition challenged laws which deem homosexual acts to be “unnatural criminal behaviour”.

The court ruled that the “validity of a law” cannot be challenged by anyone who is “not affected by it“.

Did you guys catch that? We aren’t talking about legalizing gay marriage in India like we are debating in the U.S. We are talking about legalizing homosexuality itself.

“Indian society, by and large, disapproves of homosexuality and justifies it being treated as a criminal offence even when adults indulge in private,” said a government lawyer.

As you read, the courts have rejected petitions challenging this stupid law by any groups that aren’t themselves homosexual, because apparently this issue “does not affect them.”