The San Jose Mercury News chose to not run a Dilbert strip last week that featured the character Dogbert criticizing a ruling by India’s Supreme Court to reaffirm a British colonial-era law that criminalizes “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.” While the law doesn’t technically make it illegal to be homosexual in India it has been interpreted as making the act of same sex intercourse illegal. India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had sought to remove the language, but the Supreme Court upheld the law.
In the February 7, 2014 Dilbert strip Dogbert breaks the fourth wall and informs readers that to “commemorate” India’s Supreme Court upholding a law “making it a crime to be born gay” Asok the intern “is now officially gay.”
The Advocate reported that “several U.S. newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News, refused to run the Dilbert strip, opting instead to rerun an older comic.” It’s worth noting that in spite of the use of the word “several” no other publications have been cited as having censored Friday’s strip.