It's being called the Stonewall of India

India is a conservative country. Even speaking about sex is mostly taboo. So when a Delhi court recently decided that homosexual acts between consenting adults are no longer a crime, people started talking. The decision overturned a 148-year-old law from the time of the British Raj which described same-sex relationships as "unnatural offences" punishable by a ten-year prison sentence.

Gay-rights activists are calling the Delhi decision "India's Stonewall". New York's Stonewall riot in 1969 was the starting point of the American gay-rights movement. "We are elated," Aditya Bandopadhyay, a gay lawyer, told the BBC. "I think what now happens is that a lot of our fundamental rights which were denied to us can now be reclaimed by us."

Unlike the country's lawmakers, India's film-makers have been more courageous when it comes to homosexuality. Fire, made in 1996, was the first Indian film to show lesbian sex, while the recent Dostana is the first major Bollywood film to portray gayness.

Ashok Row Kavi, the editor of India's first gay magazine, Bombay Dost, welcomed the Delhi decision, but religious leaders are unhappy. Father Dominic Emanuel of India's Catholic Bishop Council said that he has never considered homosexuality to be criminal, "but the Church does not approve of this behaviour." The head cleric of Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque, was more direct. "This is absolutely wrong. We will not accept any such law," Ahmed Bukhari said.