India pride parade, (Creative Commons)

Just a day after India’s top court upheld a law banning gay sex, the Indian government is considering measures to restore a 2009 Deli High Court order that would formalize legalized homosexuality. 

Wednesday’s ruling reinstated a 153-year-old colonial-era law that described same-sex relationships as an "unnatural offence," punishable by a 10-year jail term. 

READ ALSO: India Criminalizes Homosexuality

153 years ago, America still allowed slavery; clearly a historic precedent is no justification for ghastly human rights violations. 

Amidst the protests of thousands of Indian citizens and activists that erupted throughout the country on Wednesday, it has become incredibly clear that the dissatisfaction and sense of betrayal is felt throughout the government. 

"The government is considering all options to restore the (Delhi) high court verdict on (Section) 377 (of IPC). We must decriminalize adult consensual relationships," law minister Kapil Sibal told The Times of India. 

Echoing the cries of many of her countrymen, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi said she was disappointed with the court’s ruling and hopes that will help remedy the issue. 

"I hope that Parliament will address the issue and uphold the constitutional guarantee of life and liberty to all citizens of India, including those directly affected by the judgment," Gandhi said. “This Constitution has given us a great legacy, a legacy of liberalism and openness, that enjoin us to combat prejudice and discrimination of any kind.” 

People living in India report that the law has rarely been used to jail people for consensual sex, police officers commonly use the law to badger gay men and women. 

Having officially decriminalized gay sex only a decade earlier, America is now one of the many countries anxiously watching to see how India addresses the issue. Not only for the sake of its own countrymen, but also for the sake of dozens of other countries including Malaysia and Singapore who look to India as a model for the expansion of gay rights, India will have to decide how to work within—or outside—its political system to create a civil rights model that will bring admiration, rather than shame, to the country.  

Contact Executive Producer Sara Newman here. Tweet her here.