DAY 506 | Why Sri Lanka should decriminalize homosexuality

Penalties for gay sex include up to 10 years in prison

Sections 365 and 365A of the colonial-era Penal Code still criminalize homosexuality. Penalties include up to 10 years in prison, though no one has been prosecuted yet under the said provisions. Yet, the discriminatory law fosters social stigma and creates a permissive context for abuse.

Criminalization also stands in the way of any meaningful measures for equal opportunities for LGBT communities in employment and social life, effectively entrenching discrimination against citizens based on sexual identity and orientation.

The bitter irony is that some of the most powerful political bigwigs of the country were openly gay, others lived a lie, and either way, the public did not care about their private lives. Yet the dubious anomaly in the colonial-era law has persisted under successive governments. 

In May 2023, the Supreme Court ruled a private member’s motion by then MP Premnath Dolawatte to decriminalize homosexuality as consistent with the Constitution, clearing the way for a parliamentary vote. The judges also observed that decriminalization enhanced human dignity and equal protection under the law. The bill required only a simple majority in a parliamentary vote to become law.

However, the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration sat on the bill until Parliament was dissolved, which effectively terminated all pending legislative business.

However, the Supreme Court ruling would set a precedent for future judgments, which would mean the government can decriminalize homosexuality with a simple majority in a parliamentary vote.

The government must not have any business in the bedrooms of its citizens.

Sri Lanka is an outlier that is trapped in a discriminatory, arcane colonial-era law, while the rest of the civilized world has moved on. In 2018, the Indian Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality in the historic Navtej Singh Johar vs. Union of India case. The court ruled that Penal Code section 377 (equivalent to Sri Lankan Penal Code section 365) was unconstitutional and that it was no longer a crime for consensual adults to have private relationships. Elsewhere, in Thailand, a majority Buddhist country, same-sex marriages were legalized in the landmark Marriage Equality Act.

The bitter irony is that some of the most powerful political bigwigs of the country were openly gay; others lived a lie.

The Wickremesinghe administration’s reluctance to proceed to a parliamentary vote on the draft bill was due to fears over opposition from conservative groups, clergy, puritans, and other closeted bigots, despite those groups having been delegitimized by the youthful Aragalaya and having lost their agency. If not hypocrisy, then that reveals the impotence of the government.

The government must not have any business in the bedrooms of its citizens. The regimes that indulge in that generally rule over the most forsaken places in the world. 

Evangelical Christianity is on a rampage in some corners of Africa, cajoling opportunistic rulers to enact homophobic laws that threaten the death sentence for homosexuality, and Ayatollahs in Iran take pride in hanging homosexuals.

Sri Lanka should escape this dubious company. The government can proceed with a bill to decriminalize homosexuality and vote it into law, which it can achieve with its near two-thirds majority, even if the opposition resorts to cheap politics. 

However, in ideal conditions, it should move further and follow the progressive lead of Thailand. There will be immense reputational gains, both for the government and the country. The free world places a heavy premium on LGBT rights. However, Sri Lanka should decriminalize homosexuality not because the EU tells it to, but because it is the right thing to do to ensure equal treatment for all its citizens.

Source: dailymirror.lk, Ranga Jarsuriya, August 19, 2026

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