Facebook accounts go #GayForADay in protest against Indian gay sex ban

Facebook users, both gay, bisexual and straight, have been changing their profile pictures to pictures of themselves engaging in same-sex kisses in a viral protest against India’s recently reintroduced gay sex ban.

The page, and hashtag Gay For A Day, and #gayforaday, were created by Facebook user Tanmay Sahay, which asks people to change their profile pictures to images of themselves kissing someone of the same sex.

Others have also taken to Twitter using the hashtags #sec377 #scrap377 and #LGBT, in order to draw attention to the cause.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court in India ruled to reinstate Section 377 of the penal code, which bans gay sex.

LGBT campaigners in India and around the world reacted with shock at the ruling.

The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said he is “personally saddened” that India’s Supreme Court has reinstated the ban.

Dr Purna Sen, former Head of Human Rights at the Commonwealth Secretariat and chair of the Kaleidoscope Trust, said: “The Supreme Court’s ruling is a terrible setback for the struggle to secure equal rights for LGBT people, not just in India, but in many of the Commonwealth countries that still enforce colonial era restrictions on the liberties of LGBT people.”

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