LGBTQ+ Rights Worldwide

It's often linked to religious beliefs. The mainstream interpretations of most Abrahamitic religions (Judaism, Christendom and Islam) are not same-sex relationship friendly.

Figured. Though as the Mod Warning at pointed out, we must leave mentioning religion as a factor at that.

Now, other than religion, there isn't any common factor that prevents countries from changing their stances on LGBTQ rights?

Edited by HallowHawk on Feb 6th 2024 at 10:05:16 AM

Social inertia, I presume.

A society has been doing things a certain way for some time, and is reluctant to change its ways and views suddenly.

Changing strongly held traditions requires time.

Interestingly, the USSR decriminalised homosexuality under Lenin, then criminalised it again after his death. I'd be interested to see more context on that, if anyone knows?

Another post-colonialism theme seems to be the belief (sometimes entangled with the religious issues) that the pre-colonial culture was entirely cis and straight, and it's the decadent west that introduced all this lgbtq+ stuff.

History doesn't always support that, but in some cases the history's been so erased by a ruling empire that it's hard to tell.

One thing I remember is that the decriminalization was basically about declaring all previous laws invalid and then not bothering to pass laws to criminalize homosexuality.

How accurate that really is though, since as per the wiki, there were sections of the Bolsheviks who genuinely wanted to improve homosexual rights (while others were homophobic), and said sections did pursue for it, more than simply decriminalizing it as an act of rebellion against the old Tsarist regime.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_Russia#:~:text=The%20Soviet%20government%20of%20the,following%20its%20redrafting%20in%201926.

Edited by xyzt on Feb 7th 2024 at 12:09:13 AM

I believe that the French Revolution is a similar case of a revolutionary government opening up LGBT+ rights, as they removed all sodomy laws.

The U.S.S.R. seems to have decriminalized Homosexuality at first as part of the effort to break up with religious and social norms.

It was only effective in Russia and Ukraine; other parts of the Soviet did criminalize it; for example, in Azerbaijan, the penalty for same-sex between males was 5 years in prison.

.................

During Stailn's era, homosexuality was seen as:

1-A "mental problem" that should be "cured" and not be permited to spread.

2-A habit of the decadent Bourgeoisie and Aristocracy, that doesn't befit a proletarian society.

3-Homosexeual=pedophile so we must Think of the Children!

And thus article 121 was added in 1934 criminalizing male to male sex and punishing it by 5 years of forced labor (no mention of same-sex between females there)

................

About point 1, here is a quote from page 593 of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1930 edition (Found in Wikipedia)

Edited by jawal on Feb 6th 2024 at 9:53:13 PM

This stuff is also part of the reason the Lavender Scare in the US during the 50s-70s was such a bafflingly terrible idea. The USSR was not actually particularly gay-friendly, it was just less likely to ruin someone's life over only them being queer in some way. So like...marginally less hostile to queer people. It's also worth noting that while the USSR would sometimes extradite their agents to Russia, anyone queer they got (and it was invariably because of queer people scared for their lives) were generally sent somewhere else. Like, a non-zero number of them got extradited to France, because France at that time was at least not threating all queer people.

Note, the number of these turncoat agents was still very low. Possibly less than 40 people total. Because most of the people vulnerable to the Lavender Scare were actually US government agents and were significantly less likely to be Soviet sympathizers or communists than the average population.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 6th 2024 at 2:10:10 PM

Marxism does not have much of an opinion on social issues and they tended to not be a major geopolitical issue either. So Communists' attitudes to LGBT+ issues can vary a lot, depending on social attitudes in the countries and leaders' attitudes.

So, Greece is discussing same sex marriage or civil unions and the Orthodox church is calling for protests.

Going by Swiss radio:

• The current government is centre-right and is advancing the bill.
• A large proportion of government MPs might dissent, which could force the government to seek votes among opposition MPs.
• The largest opposition party Syriza might be favourable to the reform or think it does not go far enough.
• There might be political reasons for the government to introduce the bill, since it would imply that social issues aren't solely Syriza's province.

Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me that much? Greece allowing gay marriage has a pretty direct economic benefit (Greece has a gigantic wedding tourism industry, allowing gay marriage expands it quite a bit) and some of the smarter right-wing people think that occasionally giving concessions to marginalized groups will take the wind out of their sails (sort of, but not really).

It turns out that one of the best ways to get growing opposition is to just establish that you fucking hate a marginalized group that isn’t very hated overall.

And you can add an Extra G to your Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Feb 11th 2024 at 11:12:42 AM

Honestly if it goes through, start investing in companies booking wedding tours to Lesbos.

Seems like it's been legalized already, it's been going on for like half a year. Cheers, hopefully things don't get messy from assholes that get bothered by this of all things and not the government's actual messes.

Well, there's "wedding" in the sense of the celebration, and "wedding" in the sense of the legal ceremony. For example, you can visit Taiwan, file the paperwork there^note in Taiwan, a legal marriage does not require any kind of ceremony; you just have to register your marriage with the appropriate office, and then have your wedding ceremony in Greece. I imagine something like that is what the wedding tours mean.

Edited by Ramidel on Feb 15th 2024 at 3:15:22 AM

(Granted I'm still not 100% sure if the marriage legalized is the church type. Political weddings were legal in some areas of Greece, so at least that I imagine is fully legal everywhere now.)

Greece first Orthodox Christian country to legalise same-sex marriage

I assume it is about civil weddings, since it's a bill passed by the Greek parliament. And given the Orthodox Church's opposition to the bill, their deciding to celebrate same-sex weddings would be monumental news.

Technically Greece is the only state where Orthodoxy is clearly defined as the state religion.

In Ghana, the controversial "Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill" (informally known as the "anti-LGBTQ Bill") has been passed today by the country's Parliament. According to the BBC, the bill contains punishments up to "three years for anyone convicted of identifying as LGBTQ+, and a maximum five-year jail term for forming or funding LGBTQ+ groups."

The bi-partisan supported bill will "come into effect only if President Nana Akufo-Addo signs it into law". It's noted that Akufo-Addo was a human rights lawyer, but has been fence-sitting on the issue for years.

Some critics, within Ghana itself and members of the diaspora, have expressed that this will be damaging to Ghana's increased appeal towards tourism (like the successful Year of Return), health aid, and international companies and business moving in. Furthermore, stroking existing witch hunts against citizens suspected of being allies to the LGBTQ+ community, including journalists.

As a reminder, due to the country's strong Christian presence, we have the LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion thread for other relevant talking points.

Edited by XMenMutant22 on Mar 1st 2024 at 2:46:19 PM

So it's established nobody should visit Ghana now.

The actual "shithole country" list...

Looks like Thailand is about to legalise same-sex marriage.