SFBayTimes.com – By Rex Wockner
More than half of the world’s remaining bans on gay sex are relics of British colonial rule, Human Rights Watch said in a report published Dec. 17. In a statement, the group “urged governments everywhere to affirm international human rights standards and reject the oppressive legacies of colonialism by repealing laws that criminalize consensual sexual activity among adults of the same sex.” The 66-page report, “This Alien Legacy: The Origins of ‘Sodomy’ Laws in British Colonialism,” describes how laws in more than three dozen countries, from India and Uganda to Nigeria and Papua New Guinea, derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that British rulers imposed on India in 1860. (The High Court in Delhi recently ended hearings in a years-long case seeking to decriminalize homosexual conduct, and a ruling in the landmark case is expected soon.)