LGBT equality around the world
As LGBT Americans were celebrating this summer’s U.S. Supreme Court rulings abolishing California’s same-sex marriage ban and the Defense of Marriage Act, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law June 30 that forbids public advocacy of LGBT rights in Russia. The law, banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors,” imposes stiff fines for promotion of LGBT acceptance or equality in Russia wherever a child could witness — prohibiting not only public Pride demonstrations but any public affirmation of LGBT identities, especially when it comes to mass media.
International reactions turned immediately toward the planned 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi next February, an event that normally represents global unity and diversity but now brings concerns that some athletes and visitors would be breaking Russian law for things they take for granted at home, such as simply talking to media about being lesbian or gay.
Russian authorities have sought to assure the international community that the law doesn’t criminalize same-sex relationships, which can be punished as criminal in many other parts of the world. But the risk of fines inarguably puts LGBT Russians in a state of fear regarding what the Western world increasingly sees as basic human rights — the ability to speak, express and organize around LGBT causes, to humanize themselves to the general population and to respond to victimization. The law has come with a surge of street violence against LGBT Russians from nationalist vigilante groups. It limits LGBT Russians’ ability to build a community even simply for personal and social relationships, reminiscent of a time not long ago in the U.S. when LGBT Americans were seeing bars shut down and facing arrest, under vice charges for public affection or publicly wearing opposite-gender clothing.
The situation in Russia, like growing dangers for LGBT people in Uganda, Iran or Egypt, elicit a question: which direction is history moving?
From our relative comfort in the U.S. today, even with the challenges we still face, it’s easy to get a sense that the march to equality is unstoppable — that in a generation same-sex marriage will be a reality nationwide and a subject of open political discussion even in the most currently-hostile places on Earth. Clearly LGBT rights are on a trajectory of expansion across the world, but progress toward tolerance has never been invulnerable. Though there’s never been a concept of LGBT equality quite like the way it appears in the Western world today, many manifestations of tolerance and even celebration of same-sex love and gender variance in ancient history have faded into centuries of stigma and repressive ideologies. Currently, populations where LGBT people are actively prosecuted for criminal offenses outnumber populations where same-sex relationships are recognized by 60 percent.
That the arc of history seems turned backward right now in Russia, a place that defies stereotypes or assumptions about where these kinds of dangers lurk. Russia is a growing economy that has liberalized since the collapse of the USSR, and the population is relatively secular; Gallup polls on religious attitudes have found that only about a third of the Russian population says religion is important to them. Compare that to Portugal, a predominantly Roman Catholic nation where more than two thirds place a high value on religion (slightly higher than the U.S.) — yet Portugal has full marriage equality. It seems there are no firm and simple rules predicting how open a society will be to LGBT equality, and it may come as a surprise which parts of the world are truly seeing the most progress.
Africa
Population: 1033 million
55 million in jurisdictions with full marriage equality — 5.3 percent
978 million in jurisdictions with no relationship recognition — 94.7 percent
730 million risk government persecution — 70.7 percent
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Places to Watch: Egypt
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Despite social stigma Cairo hosts a substantial underground LGBT culture, and under Honsi Mubarak’s pre-2011 rule Egyptian police sometimes used vague morality codes to arrest and prosecute LGBT people — one famous case being the “Cairo 52,” a group of gay men arrested in a floating nightclub on the Nile in 2001, many of whom served sentences. Since the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, which some hoped would be an opportunity for progress, conditions have changed rapidly and by many accounts have deteriorated. This summer the Egyptian military suspended the post-revolution Constitution and it is unclear what risk of government prosecution LGBT Egyptians face now or will face under future governments.
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Places to Watch: Uganda
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Uganda drew international headlines in 2009 when an anti-homosexuality bill in the nation’s parliament, sometimes referred to as the “kill the gays bill” by Western media, sought brutal criminal penalties — up to and including death — for convictions of sex between people of the same gender and also criminal penalties for supporters of LGBT rights. Reportedly influenced in part by American Evangelical groups and financing, the legislation stalled under international pressure, but has repeatedly re-emerged and could still become law.
More than 1 billion people live in Africa, where overlapping cultures and religious groups set a complex stage for LGBT communities. More than 70 percent of Africans live in countries where homosexuality is prosecuted as a crime, yet isolated communities of out LGBT people and activist groups exist in many of them.
Marriage equality is legal for 5.3 percent of the African population — in South Africa, in the offshore Canary Islands, which are part of Spain, and in other micro-territories that are part of Spain or France. Homosexuality is punishable by death in Mauritania, northern Nigeria and Sudan, and highly publicized legislation in Uganda threatens to enact a death penalty or long prison sentences for homosexuality there.
Asia
Population: 4164 million
None in jurisdictions with full marriage equality
8 million in jurisdictions with some relationship recognition — 0.2 percent
4156 million in jurisdictions with no relationship recognition — 98.8 percent
650 million risk persecution — 15.6 percent
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Places to Watch: Iraq
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Human rights groups have voiced serious concerns about the safety of LGBT people in Iraq since before U.S. military withdrawal. Iraq’s penal code, which adopts the nation’s criminal code from 1969 even under the new 2005 constitution, does not specifically threaten LGBT individuals or sexual relationships with formal charges. But militias backed by political parties or clerics have killed or assaulted LGBT Iraqis in numerous extra-judicial attacks and trials — some of which, human rights observers have alleged, have been tolerated or even discreetly supported by the Iraqi government.
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Places to Watch: Nepal
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Nepal’s Supreme Court requested protections for LGBT rights in 2007, and in a 2008 ruling the court sided with full equality for LGBT people, but for the last six years the small nation in the Himalayas has been caught up in a painstakingly-slow process of writing a new constitution and the interim government has missed repeated deadlines for finalizing one. The requested legislation is yet to materialize, though observers suggest the promised new constitution could include marriage equality, whenever that may occur.
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Places to Watch: Taiwan
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Taiwan has a history of friendly relationships between political leaders and the LGBT community, and a publicized 2013 poll reported majority support for granting lesbians and gays the right to marry. A government court declined to make a ruling on a same-sex couple’s case in 2012, but the national legislature is set to review legislation for same-sex marriage later this year and the country may represent the easiest path to a first Asian nation with marriage equality.
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More than half of the world’s population — more than 4 billion people — live in Asia, where diverse societies and cultures have a wide range of views and laws regarding LGBT issues. Only Israel offers formal relationship recognition for same-sex couples, a spousal benefit status with similar rights. Many Asian cultures tolerate or celebrate same-sex relationships or gender variance in forms that are unfamiliar to the West, making government relationship recognition or marriage equality less of a priority for those communities. Others, especially in the Middle East, strictly forbid same-sex sexuality with harsh criminal penalties despite the presence of underground LGBT communities or common same-sex sexual practices that are not considered “homosexual.”
In former Soviet states, resistance to perceived Western influence has led to a growing backlash against LGBT rights — Russia’s anti-LGBT “propaganda” law has also been enacted in the former Soviet nation of Moldova. People have been convicted and executed for homosexuality in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan. Persecution of same-sex relationships in those countries is often based on interpretations of Islamic law, yet there have been Pride marches in Turkey, which is more than 97 percent Muslim, an increasingly-visible LGBT community and gay press in Jordan, which is 92 percent Muslim, and examples of tolerant environments in Islamic countries in East Asia.
Europe
Population: 739 million
225 million in jurisdictions with full equality — 30.4 percent
366 million in jurisdictions with at least some relationship recognition — 49.5 percent
373 million in jurisdictions with no relationship recognition — 50.5 percent
110 million risk government persecution — 14.9 percent
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Places to Watch: Germany
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Germany’s governing political coalition currently opposes full marriage equality but recent polls show growing majorities of German citizens support updating registered partnership laws to full marriage equality. Such a change would bring Europe’s most populous nation up to date with nearby European powerhouses, the United Kingdom and France.
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Places to Watch: Ireland
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Next year same-sex marriage will go directly before voters in Ireland, where polling has found some of the world’s strongest levels of public support for marriage equality — more than three-quarters of respondents in some surveys. With the promised referendum’s outcome all but certain, LGBT activists have focused on pressuring the government to speed up setting a date for the vote, expected to occur sometime in 2014.
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Places to Watch: Russia
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Recent developments in Russia have put LGBT people at serious risk of government persecution and violence and made Russia a focal point of international outcry regarding LGBT human rights. Concerns focus especially on this year’s new vaguely-worded national law imposing fines for “propaganda” publicly depicting same-sex relationships as positive or as equal to heterosexual relationships. Alongside a flurry of brutal attacks on gay and transgender Russians by nationalist vigilante groups, many of which are posted for worldwide audiences in videos online, the situation has drawn international boycotts of Russian goods and calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics next February in Sochi.
In 2001 the Netherlands became the first country in the world with marriage equality, and since then the map has expanded through most of the westernmost parts of Europe. Close to a third of Europeans live in areas that treat same-sex marriages equal to opposite-sex marriages, which include Spain, France, most of the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Ireland will likely have marriage equality next year, and majorities support equality in Germany and Finland. In central Europe civil unions or other forms of relationship recognition are more common, but about half of Europeans live in places that still lack any form of relationship recognition for same-sex couples. Included in their ranks are 110 million people in the European part of Russia, where LGBT advocacy has recently been banned.
North America*
Population: 529 million
140 million in jurisdictions with full equality — 26.5 percent
179 million in jurisdictions with at least some relationship recognition — 33.8 percent
467 million can have relationships joined elsewhere recognized at home — 88.3 percent
62 million have no access to relationship recognition — 11.7 percent
5 million risk government persecution — 0.9 percent
*Hawaii is calculated with Australia and Pacific Islands instead of North America
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Places to Watch: Mexico
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Ten million of Mexico’s 118 million residents live in the two states that currently offer same-sex marriages, one of which is the Mexico City capitol district, and two other states offer civil unions. Marriages performed in states where they are legal are recognized nationwide. Pending state-level legislation and recent legal rulings in favor of lesbian and gay couples in several other Mexican states suggest the map for same-sex unions in Mexico is likely to expand on a course resembling marriage equality’s gradual progress in the U.S.
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Places to Watch: United States
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A total of 13 states and six local Indian nations, plus Washington DC and several counties in New Mexico, have begun offering marriage licenses to same-sex couples since the nation’s first same-sex marriages began in Massachusetts in 2004. After the Supreme Court ruling striking the Defense of Marriage Act in June the U.S. federal government began recognizing the marriages, and with the simultaneous reintroduction of marriage equality in California now 30 percent of Americans live in places where same-sex marriage is legal. Several more states including Illinois and Oregon are expected to consider initiatives for marriage equality in 2014.
Most of North America has relatively liberal policies toward LGBT rights, but strong state governments in North American nations makes it one of the more complicated continents to asses: both the U.S. and Mexico have full marriage equality or civil unions in some states, no unions in others, and evolving interactions between state and federal governments regarding how same-sex unions are handled. Alongside those differences are regional variations in rights for transgender individuals. In several Caribbean nations homosexuality is still a criminal offense.
More than a quarter of people in North America live in jurisdictions where same-sex couples can marry, but more than 88 percent are now able to get a marriage license somewhere in their country that their federal government will recognize even if their current state doesn’t. But since more of the benefits of marriage in the U.S. are dealt with at a state level than in other countries, being married in a state that doesn’t recognize that marriage doesn’t offer couples protections as strong as they might have being married elsewhere in the world.
Oceania and Pacific Islands
Population: 39 million
5 million in jurisdictions with full equality — 12.8 percent
30 million in jurisdictions with at least some relationship recognition — 76.9 percent
9 million in jurisdictions with no relationship recognition — 23.1 percent
8 million risk persecution — 20.5 percent
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Places to Watch: Australia
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Former Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made headlines during the months before Australia’s Sept. 7 federal elections when he switched his position to favoring same-sex marriage and campaigned on a promise to push for equality legislation. Election results have dealt those prospects a blow, defeating Rudd’s party and electing Tony Abbott, a former Roman Catholic seminarian from the center-Right party and staunch opponent of same-sex marriage. Polls showed that marriage equality wasn’t a major factor in how Australians cast their votes, but majorities of voters say they support it nonetheless.
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New Zealand this year became the first country in the region to approve a law for marriage equality, but before weddings began there in August, same-sex couples in New Caledonia, French Polynesia and other nearby islands were able to wed since they are colonies of France, which approved same-sex marriages in May. Most of the population in Oceania is in Australia, where all eight major states and territories offer same-sex couples a relationship status short of marriage. A majority of Australians support full equality. The second most populous country in the region is a drastic contrast — homosexuality is punishable by a prison sentence in Papua New Guinea. Between the hundreds of Pacific islands composed of several islands and colonies, laws range from persecution to protections.
South America
Population: 387 million
246 million in jurisdictions with full marriage equality — 63.6 percent
309 million in jurisdictions with at least some relationship recognition — 79.8 percent
82 million in jurisdictions with no relationship recognition — 21.2 percent
None risk government persecution
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Places to Watch: Chile
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Chilean lawmakers have introduced bills for civil unions or marriage equality only to see their defeat, but recent polling has begun to show for the first time a majority of Chilean citizens supporting same-sex relationship recognition. The leading candidate for Chile’s upcoming presidential election, Michelle Bachelet, supports full marriage equality.
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Places to Watch: Colombia
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Same-sex couples in Colombia already receive some rights and benefits granted through court rulings, and in 2011 Colombia’s highest court ruled that the national congress must pass a law to offer same-sex couples a marriage or another form of official union by June this year. Though Colombia’s legislature rejected all proposals, notaries have begun offering marriage-like contracts. In July a lower court judge ruled that one same-sex couple could officially marry, putting pressure on the high court to expand its 2011 ruling.
In terms of American international news coverage, South America is one of the least-examined parts of the world — but in terms of government policies toward LGBT rights, South America is by far the friendliest. Close to two thirds of its 387 million residents live where full marriage equality is available and about 80 percent enjoy some form of relationship recognition. The only South American nation with any statute against same-sex relationships is Guyana, where activists have been working to abolish a law remaining from British colonial rule that classifies sex between men as a criminal offence, but is not enforced. Brazil hosts some of the most visible openly-LGBT populations on the planet; Sao Paulo Pride, in the nation’s largest city, claims to host the largest Pride celebration in the world with more than 4 million in attendance.
GLOBAL TOTAL
Population: 7.1 billion
671 million in jurisdictions with full equality — 9.5 percent
947 million in jurisdictions with at least some relationship recognition — 13.3 percent
1.5 billion where federal relationship recognition is possible — 17.4 percent
5.66 billion with no access to relationship recognition — 79.7 percent
1.5 billion risk persecution — 21 percent
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