Gay sex is a disease: Health Minister Azad

India's Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has said
homosexuality is a "disease" which is
"spreading fast" in the country.
Ghulam Nabi Azad also told a meeting that
gay sex was "unnatural". Activists said his
comments were "unfortunate".
India's Supreme Court decriminalised gay
sex in the country in a landmark judgement
in 2009.
The ruling was widely welcomed by India's
gay community, which said the order would
help protect them from harassment and
persecution.
Mr Azad told a meeting on HIV/Aids in Delhi
on Monday that gay sex "which was found
more in the developed world, has now
unfortunately come to our country and
there is a substantial number of such people
in India".
"Even through it [homosexuality] is
unnatural, it exists in our country and is
now fast spreading, making it tough to
detect it," he said.
"With relationships changing, men are
having sex with men now. Though it is easy
to find women sex workers and educate
them on sex, it is a challenge to identify men
having sex with men."
Gay rights activists have criticised Mr Azad's
comments.
"It's unfortunate, regrettable and totally
unacceptable that a minister of his stature...
is still insensitive to a vulnerable groups
such as MSM [men who have sex with men],"
Hindustan Times newspaper quoted Anand
Grover, United Nation's special rapporteur
on health, as saying.
According to one estimate, more than 8% of
homosexual men in India were infected
with HIV, compared to a less than 1%
infection rate in the general population.
The 2009 Supreme Court ruling overturned
a 148-year-old colonial law which described
a same-sex relationship as an "unnatural
offence".