RSS toes Rajnath Singh line on homosexuality issue

NEW DELHI: RSS today toed the line taken by BJP President Rajnath Singh in support of the Supreme Court judgement against homosexuality but maintained that the issue can be debated by the political parties.

"(Section) 377 (of IPC) is about unnatural relationship. There can be a debate over the Section as proposed by BJP," RSS leader Ram Madhav said on Twitter.

Earlier, BJP and RSS had been silent about their stand on the issue till Singh said yesterday that homosexuality is unnatural.

"If an all-party meeting is called, we will support Section 377 as we believe that homosexuality is an unnatural act. We cannot support it," Singh said.

Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh had yesterday demanded that RSS should make its stand clear on the Supreme Court verdict supporting Section 377 of IPC.

Earlier when this question was posed to Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley at a press conference, Swaraj had said, "The Supreme Court judgement says if Parliament wants it can change it. The government can call an all-party meeting to build a consensus on the issue. We will see the government proposal in the meeting and tell our view."

The party has been cautious in taking a stand on the issue as many BJP leaders feel opinion in the society is divided on it.

Some BJP leaders, however, appeared to be opposed to the Supreme Court order.

"Section 377 of IPC only bans sexual conduct that goes against the order of nature. A reading down of this law can be that to be born with gay tendencies cannot be against the order of nature. The court does not have to legalise or illegalise such a thing. It is not against the order of nature," a BJP leader had said.

However, Singh's comments are being treated as the official line of the party on this issue.