Kathmandu, Anil Mahaju and Diya Kashyap met about a year ago, were attracted towards each other and, after going steady for some time, decided to tie the knot.


The wedding will be solemnised at a little party in Kathmandu Saturday attended by friends and well-wishers - but no relatives.

Anil and Diya are not their real names but the names they have chosen for their future life together. Both the groom and "bride" are men and the wedding will be the first public gay marriage in Nepal where homosexuality is a crime, punishable with a year in prison and a fine.

"I am really excited and happy that they have dared to challenge (traditional) culture and family values, where the whole society is oriented towards heterosexual marriage," says Sunil Pant, president of Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's most prominent gay rights organisation that is offering its premises for the wedding.

"It is very courageous of them and I congratulate them."

As part of a gay rights organisation, Pant knows better than most the perils homosexuals face in Nepal's conservative, patriarchal society. Blue Diamond Society has to routinely bail out gays and transgenders arrested by police on weekends, beaten up, detained without trial and even sexually assaulted inside police stations.

Blue Diamond Society had also informed human rights organisations about the murder of a teenager in southern Nepal, allegedly by his father, after his family discovered he was gay.

About six years ago, two women in the tourist town of Pokhara decided to get "married" in secret. But the local media got hold of the news and the ensuing blaze of publicity resulted in the women's families first throwing them out and then trying to keep them locked up forcibly.

Though the couple came to Kathmandu and tried to start afresh by opening a small grocery, they continue to be harassed by local toughs, including security personnel.

While Anil is a 28-year-old graphics designer, Diya is a 22-year-old working at Blue Diamond Society as an outreach worker counselling on the spread of HIV/AIDS through unsafe sex and other problems faced by the community.

Their wedding, according to Pant, will be a simple, semi-traditional affair in which they will exchange rings and garlands before witnesses, followed by a little feast for the guests.

However, there will be no priests chanting the traditional wedding mantras.

The "revolutionary" wedding takes place at a time Blue Diamond Society and two other organisations, Mitini Nepal and Shakti Samuha, are asking for gay rights to be included in the new constitution of Nepal.

They want changes in the citizenship law where tesrolingis - transgenders - would be recognised as tesrolingis in the citizenship card and other government certificates, which currently have just two genders, male and female.

They also want the fundamental right of equal wage regardless of gender and recognition of marriage or civil union between two individuals regardless of their gender and sexual orientation.


Source: http://www.keralanext.com/news/?id=825758

oh good...i am happy for Jai Hindu and Memyselfand Nepal...he he

this is outrageous!

what is so outrageous? let the kids screw eachother...i dont see any prob with that...whatever floats their boat....lotsa Bush fans in here...

It's about time! I admire their courage. Doing this in a conservative Nepali society requires balls (no pun intented)

:)

100% natural, have a fun and many kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well since people might think i am big fan of bush and to too the right just want to let you know what i think :
It is personal freedom , they did what they want to do and how can we stop them ..there is no way..if they hadn't done openly they would do secretly.so whats the point?Personal choice should be respected.
BUT saying that.
I do not encourage that we should give these kind of events limelight.they are not hero they are just gay..may be happy also.

TMobile you back. how are you? where did you disappeared?

Hi, there is nothing wrong with gays.

Disgusting.

gay hos ya lesbian. let them love. just dont start makin out in public and do tuff that's sexually explict. thats when it gets too far.

I am not against gays, but WHY these guys got to dress up like guy and girl. These guys lack ambition and try to compare themselves to traditional heterosexual relation. If you guys are gays and happy as you are just dress up as regular two men and get married (unless you are gonna dress up like a girl all your life). It does not matter who is who’s biittch (we do not give d_a_m_n about it) once you lock your bedroom doors. And of course you are not following any of Nepali or Hindu tradition so you do not need SINDOOR , TIKA, RED SARI and all that stuff you pathetic people. GET LIFE
And stop setting up bad example, people are not interested in watching Man dressed up like Woman and getting married. Just be yourself although you are Gay you are still a Man, have some balls.
I apologies if I have unknowingly hurted feeling of my gay and straight friends.

Bruce dai..excellent.. good say!

bruceDai,

if you dont give a damn about who's whose b1tch, then why do you what they dress up as. They are homosexual not invisible or sorry for the choice of their lifestyle. They do what they prefer and if you dont fancy it, shut you eye.
Sindoor, tika and red sari are not just for the Hindus, or else you would need to prove your religious affiliation before purchasing such items. They didn't steal these things from some nook. I bet they paid the same price any heterosexual would pay. So why such discrimination?
And BruceDai, they do have balls. Have you ever imagined how much of guts would require to marry someone of the same sex in a culture like that of Nepal? These people made a decision and they are going to stick by it whether people like it or not. That in my books define having balls bigger than all the whinners put together. And if you didn't realize, they are being themselves. If it involves doing something that displeases you and your possies, may your heterosexual spirits be with you.

Vincent Bogeda - My thoughts exactly! At the core of Hinduism is the spirit of tolerance. Cross dressing does not appeal to me but it does not insult me or make my religion and culture any smaller if two people in love decide to use my traditions to get married.

BTW, so how exactly should gays get married, if not in the same way that others in their society get married?

I don’t any problems with gays, in fact it might be a good idea to legalize gay marriage in Nepal—it’ll certainly attract a lot of tourists…. But when will Nepali people learn anything good from any developed society other than expressing gay emotions or being a model.

what the hell is going on,,,,,,,,, government must band this ridiculous gay activities........ they are basters........

I am laughing my ass off at the last comment. The government can ban gay marriages but it cannot ban people of the same sex getting attracted to one another. As long as such attraction exists, people will demand to be treated equally and will want to live their lives openly.

Load of crock with cherry on top. This is a sham , because Nepal's legal system does not recognize gay marriage. if our legal system does not recognize gay marriage, their sham marriage is not going to be valid. That's the nitty gritty.

The American psychological association recognizes homosexuality as being genetic and ingrained; it is not something you learn through experience. Pedophilia has also been defined by many psychologists as being a genetic anomaly. I bet most of you consider pedophilia to be repulsive, but are okay with homosexuality. The point I'm trying to make is that just because psychologists recognize homosexuality as being a genetic condtion does not mean that we, as a community, should tolerate it. Pedophiles are attracted to only kids. They are not arouse by voluptuous adult females. They want kids, and only kids will satisfy their sexual urges. By extension, if homosexuality is to be tolerated, why not bestiality, or for that matter polygamy. It just opens a can of worms if you ask me. If one of these groups have it their way, other sexual deviants would push for their rights as well. So I say, ban gay marriage. It's a load of bull.

rudra prasad upadhya,

So what do you say about heterosexuality. Is that genetically ingrained or not? So you tell why I should tolerate heterosexuality using the same logic you gave to not tolerate homosexuality.