Goa Minister in a volte face denies making remarks against LGBT

NEW DELHI: A day after he made an ignorant remark that gays, lesbian, bisexuals and transgenders are people with a “disease” and can be cured medically, Ramesh Tawadkar, Goa Sports & Youth Affairs minister, made an about turn and denied that his remarks were ‘misconstrued’ by the media.

Tawadkar who found himself in the eye of the storm with his statement, retracted in a telephone interview to the Wall Street Journal.“They took the wrong meaning. They asked me about drug addicts and abused youth,” he said. “No one asked me about LGBT, and there is nothing in the policy about this subject.”

In the video of the interview he gave to a TV channel on Monday, Mr Tawadkar can, clearly, be heard as saying that they will open special centres on the lines of alcoholic anonymous, to cure the individuals belonging to LGBT sections of society. “We will make them normal. We will have a centre for them. Like Alcoholics Anonymous centres, we will have centres...,” the Minister said.

Tawadkar is a teacher, not a man of science.

Goa minister’s preposterous interview found its antithesis, in a much more credible figure, when it coincided with the strong comments made by Ban-Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General, who on a visit to India questioned the Indian Supreme Court’s decision to ban intercourse between individuals of the same sex.

“I am proud to stand for the equality of all people — including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. I speak out because laws criminalizing consensual, adult same-sex relationships violate basic rights to privacy and to freedom from discrimination. Even if they are not enforced, these laws breed intolerance,” he said.

Earlier, Baba Ramdev, a yoga guru, too, had made claims that homosexuality is a treatable disease, and could be cured by practising the right yoga postures.