In the Asia-Pacific region, 18 countries outlaw same-sex relations and it is illegal to have gay sex in 10 Middle East nations. In May this year, Kenya’s high court upheld a ban on same-sex relations with punishments of up to 14 years in jail. While most European nations had scrapped laws on gay sex by the late 1990s, Africa has remained largely resistant with 32 of its 54 nations still outlawing gay sex as some politicians and church leaders refer to the “Western disease” of homosexuality. Twelve countries removed laws punishing same-sex relations in the 2000s, and 13 have lifted bans since 2010, with Botswana and Angola the most recent to join the list, acting this year. “This hindered the progress which we were making at the time towards social acceptance,” Hodson said. This dipped to five nations in the 1980s as the global HIV/AIDS epidemic dissuaded countries from tackling what was seen as a highly controversial issue, said Matthew Hodson, executive director of NAM aidsmap, a British HIV/Aids information charity. The analysis found the 1970s and 1990s saw a rush of countries removing bans on same-sex relations, with 13 decriminalizing gay sex in the 1970s and 26 in the 1990s. To track the pace of changes since the Stonewall riots, the Thomson Reuters Foundation analyzed data from a number of LGBT+ rights groups and some external sources. “It’s really important that people see how easy it is to lose the rights we have gained, how fragile our hold on human rights is,” Lisa Power, one of the founders of British campaign group Stonewall, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
![gay flag burning is bad gay flag burning is bad](https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5f874907e8fd0f281aad5ce9/2:1/w_1705,h_852,c_limit/Williams-Flags01.jpg)
“They pushed the wrong person and that person pushed them back and before you know it, they were beating up the cop and that started the whole rebellion.”įast forward half a century and gay sex remains illegal in 69 countries and can be punished with death in seven nations.ĭenmark in 1989 became the first nation to legalize a form of gay marriage with 26 countries and Taiwan following suit, but courses to “convert” minors from being gay are legal in all but three nations and reported murders of trans people are rising.Įxclusive data analysis by the Thomson Reuters Foundation showed while more countries are using legal clout to recognize LGBT+ rights, the pace of change has stalled amid an escalating conservative and religious backlash. “(The police) came in nasty,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation outside the Stonewall Inn where the modern LGBT+ rights movements began on June 28, 1969, after a police raid.
![gay flag burning is bad gay flag burning is bad](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2017_34/2127421/170821_white_nationalists.jpg)
FILE PHOTO: A rainbow pride flag is seen at the New York public library ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riot, in New York, U.S., June 22, 2019.