Watch: What Ramdev, Jaggi Vasudev and Ravi Shankar have said about homosexuality in the past
‘Mental illness.’ ‘Product of a social situation.’ ‘Not permanent’.
The Supreme Court decriminalised homosexual activity between consenting adults in a landmark 5-0 judgement on Thursday. The road to this judgement has been a bumpy one, rendered more difficult by several influential public figures airing views that refuse to acknowledge all sexual orientations as natural and legitimate. Here are three of them.
Ramdev: The yoga teacher and entrepreneur has voiced his views against homosexuality repeatedly, not only calling it a mental illness, but also claiming that it can be cured through yoga (video above).
Jaggi Vasudev: When asked what he thought about Section 377 and homosexuality in 2017, he said the law needed to be “debated” and not protested against on the streets. In another interview he called homosexuals “a product of the social situation rather than if any kind of physiological or inner need.”
Ravi Shankar: While he was addressing a gathering at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2017, a student asked The Art of Living founder how he should deal with ill-treatment by his loved ones over his sexual orientation. Ravi Shankar seemed to model his answer around the phrase “this too shall pass,” and called homosexuality a “tendency” which is not “permanent.”