Minister's LGBT comment came from ignorance: Goa CM

Panaji, Jan 13: Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Tuesday said alternative sexual orientation was a "natural thing" and there was no question of setting up centres in the state to "cure" LGBT youth with medicine and training.

Parsekar also said the comments by Goa's Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Ramesh Tawadkar on Monday about the need to set up such rehabilitative centres to cure LGBT youth could have been made out of "ignorance".

"No no. It is a natural thing," Parsekar said when asked about the state government's position on the orientation of the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender (LGBT) community.

When asked to comment on Tawadkar's controversial statement, the chief minister first tried to dodge the quesry but later said: "I don't feel he will say that, but if at all it could be ignorance then."

Tawadkar, while speaking to the media on the sidelines of a function held to launch the Goa State Youth Policy 2015 said the state government was contemplating to start centres on the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous to make the LGBT youth "normal".

"We will train them and (give them) medicines too," Tawadkar said.

The comments have attracted flak in the international media, the social media as well from the opposition ranks here.

IANS