INDIA: Confusion Over Rights Battle

Nobody knows what happened in India today.

A sensitive debate over gay sex in India was thrown into farcical confusion Thursday after a government lawyer urged the Supreme Court to ban it — only for the government to issue a contradictory statement hours later, saying it accepts a recent ruling that made it legal. Television channels reported that the lawyer may have gotten confused and read out the wrong statement in front of the Supreme Court reflecting an old government opinion. Additional Solicitor General P. P. Malhotra told the court that "gay sex is highly immoral and against social order and there is high chance of spreading of diseases through such acts," the Press Trust of India reported. The Home Ministry quickly issued a statement saying it was not challenging a 2009 Delhi High Court order that struck down a colonial-era law making sex between people of the same gender punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The case continues before the Supreme Court.