Costa Rican human rights and anti-torture activist Victor Madrigal-Borloz is the new UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. The first expert, Vitit Muntarbhorn, resigned for health reasons after his first year in the position, which was created over the intense opposition of anti-LGBT groups and nations. Also this month, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, Jordanian Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, described the global movement for LGBT equality as a “constant struggle.”
The British Journal of Sociology has published “Muslim gay men: identity conflict and politics in a Muslim majority nation.” The abstract:
While a number of investigations have examined how gay Muslim men view homosexuality in relation to religious Western homophobia, this research constitutes the first account of the experiences of self-identified gay men living in an African, Muslim nation, where same-sex sex is both illegal and actively persecuted. We interviewed 28 gay men living in Tunisia in order to understand how they assimilate their sexual, religious and ethnic identities within a highly homophobic culture. Utilizing notions of homoerasure and homohysteria (McCormack and Eric Anderson, b), and examining the intersection of identity conflict and new social movement theory, we highlight four strategies that participants use to negotiate the dissonance of living with conflicting identities in a context of religious homophobia: (1) privileging their Islamic identities and rejecting homosexuality as a legitimate sexual identity; (2) rejecting Islam and accepting homosexuality as a legitimate sexual identity; (3) interpreting Islam to be supportive of homosexuality; and (4) creating a non-penetrative homosexuality to be compatible with literal Qur’anic interpretations. We discuss the multiple difficulties these men face in relation to religious intolerance and ethnic heteronormativity, and reflect upon the possibilities and obstacles of using Western identity politics towards the promotion of social justice within a framework of growing homohysteria.
Indonesia: High Court narrowly rejects conservatives’ request to criminalize gay sex
In a rare bit of good news for the country’s LGBT community, which has faced a wave of hostile rhetoric and persecution from religious and political officials, the country’s top court rejected an request by a conservative religious group to declare same-sex relations and all sex outside marriage to be illegal. More from Associated Press:
The 5-to-4 decision by the nine-judge panel of the Constitutional Court rejected the arguments of a conservative group, the Family Love Alliance, which believes Indonesia is being swamped by immoral behavior, fueled by the internet and social media. Members of the group wept as it became clear the court would not side with them.
Rights advocates had feared judges would criminalize tens of millions of people by outlawing gay and extramarital sex, setting back human rights in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Separately, some lawmakers are seeking to make homosexuality a crime in an amended criminal code that might be considered by parliament next year.
AP quotes a human rights lawyer calling the 5-4 decision “a big verdict.”
The judges in their ruling said it’s not the Constitutional Court’s role to criminalize private behavior or to usurp parliament by imposing laws on it. The court’s decision is final.
Judge Saldi Irsa said the petitioners were in effect asking the court to formulate a new criminal code because they feared parliament would took take too long to enact changes wanted by the Family Love Alliance.
But, in a sign of the challenges that continue to face LGBT people, Associated Press reported on December 15 that a court “has sentenced 10 men arrested in a raid at a gay club and sauna to between two and three years in prison, an activist and a relative of one of the men said.”
Bermuda: Legislature votes to replace marriage equality with domestic partnerships
Several days after the House of Assembly voted 24-10 to take the right to marriage away from same-sex couples, the Senate voted 8-3 on Wednesday to send the bill to the governor for final approval. The legislation would reverse a May Supreme Court ruling that granted same-sex couples the right to marry and would instead codify domestic partnership rights. The Progressive Labor Party, which the New York Times describes as “backed by many traditionally conservative church organizations,” took power in July “and began to mobilize legislative support for a reversal of the ruling.” Preserve Marriage, an anti-marriage equality group, had opposed giving same-sex couples even domestic partnership status.
Before the Senate vote, Julia and Judith Aidoo-Saltus, who were married in May, released a statement:
Love is love. Our marriage remains lawful under the laws of Bermuda and is sacred before our friends, our families and our God … Accordingly, we will continue to pray for all those who are struggling with this basic issue of marriage as a measure of a society’s understanding of human dignity and, ultimately, respect. Fortunately, we believe in miracles and in God. One day, all will know that love is love. And it is free.
Marriages conducted before passage of the new law will still be recognized. The head of Bermuda’s tourism authority had been criticized for warning senators that reversing marriage equality could cause the country “serious reputational damage.” But supporters of the legislation said it reflected public opposition to marriage equality. Winston Godwin, the person whose legal challenge led to the marriage equality ruling, urged Governor John Rankin to refuse to give assent to the Domestic Partnership Act.
Reporting on the legislation in Bermuda, Cayman News noted, “However, on this issue Bermuda is still streets ahead of Cayman, which has no legislative protections at all for same-sex couples who want to marry or have a civil partnership.”
Australia: Marriage equality take effect; continuing debate expected on religious exemptions
Capping a years-long lobbying effort, a national referendum-by-mail, and a quick post-vote legislative push, marriage equality became law on December 9 with an overwhelming vote in parliament. Just after the vote, Australia’s ambassador to France popped the question to his partner of 11 years, posting his proposal on twitter. The first same-sex couple is scheduled to be married on Saturday, December 16 after receiving a special exemption from the normal 30-day notice period that means most couples will have to wait until January to get married.
Under the law, churches and other religious organizations are not obligated to conduct marriage ceremonies or rent their facilities to same-sex couples. But it “won’t allow taxi drivers, florists, bakers or photographers in general to refuse to drive a person to a wedding reception, provide flowers, prepare a wedding cake or take photos,” which is “consistent with existing anti-discrimination laws which do not allow refusals of service.”
The law will recognize two types of celebrants:
Celebrants will be split into two different types. There will be a new class created of “religious marriage celebrant” who can refuse to conduct a marriage ceremony if it is contrary to their religious beliefs.
Australian Defence Force chaplains will also be able to refuse to solemnise a marriage.
Celebrants have 90 days to decide whether they want to be registered as a “religious marriage celebrant” and identify as such in any advertising.
Only existing celebrants will be allowed to do this. Anyone who becomes a celebrant after Saturday, December 9 will be considered a “civil celebrant” and will not be allowed to refuse to marry gay couples.
This is in recognition that celebrants are authorised to perform a function on behalf of the state and should be required to uphold Commonwealth law.
Debates over potential religious exemptions could continue through a commission that will conduct an “inquiry into Australia’s religious freedom protections,” with a report due at the end of March.
Ghana: Muslim Council calls for criminalization of homosexuality
The Federation of Muslim Councils “called on Parliament to enact a law” to make homosexuality “an offense punishable by law in Ghana, whether practiced publicly or privately,” according to a report on GhanaWeb:
A statement signed by the General Secretary of the FMC, Hajj Muhammad Kpakpo Addo, emphasized that the Council was solidly behind an earlier call by Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu, the National Chief Imam on all moral-minded Ghanaians, faith-based organisations and political parties to support and sustain the crusade to wean society off all morally abominable practices. …
The statement said the FMC noted that the practice of homosexuality was filthy, indecent, immoral and unhealthy in the minds of respectable Ghanaians and well-mannered children of God.
It reminded all Ghanaians that homosexuality, same-sex marriage and transgender activities were an affront to God and history was replete with how God Almighty destroyed similar way-ward societies in the past such as the infamous Sodom and Gomorrah community in ancient times.
Paraguay: Government crackdown on sex ed could boost anti-LGBT stigma
AP’s Pedro Servin reports on the problems faced by LGBT people in “one of the most sexually conservative countries in Latin America.”
A lack of legal protections and prevalent macho attitudes have long stoked discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in the poor, mostly Roman Catholic country. Advocacy groups fear the stigma and attacks on the LGBQT community could get worse now that the education minister has banned classes about sexual diversity in schools and even volunteered to help burn all books related to the subject.
The ban was implemented in October after the United Nations Children’s Fund issued a guidebook for teachers on avoiding discrimination between girls and boys and achieving gender equality.
“We’re not going to promote gender ideology,” Education Minister Enrique Riera told local media earlier this year. “We’re going to base ourselves on what is expressed in the constitution, which says that marriage is between a man and a woman.” …
“We’re living a sad time of religious fundamentalism, intolerance and hate that places this country as the most homophobic one of the region,” Somos Gay, a Paraguayan gay rights group, said in a statement. It added that “this situation has an impact on human lives. Hate crimes, bullying and violence are the disastrous consequences of this encouragement of homophobia.”
Servin notes that President Horacio Cartes, months before his 2013 election, “compared gay people to monkeys and said he would rather shoot himself in the testicles before his son married a man.”
Romania: Report on ‘traditional values’ alliance with U.S. groups to oppose LGBT rights
Sian Norris reports for Open Democracy’s 50.50 on Romania’s “backlash against LGBT rights,” which is led by “conservative and religious forces determined to protect ‘traditional family’ values,” with support from Christian conservatives in the U.S.:
Accept and the wider LGBT community face a powerful enemy in domestic conservative groups such as the Coalition for Family, the Orthodox Church, and evangelical churches in Romania, as well as their international allies – including US-based Christian legal charity Liberty Counsel.
In July 2016, it sent an amicus briefing to the Romanian government presenting a case for a referendum to change the constitutional definition of marriage and protect ‘traditional’ values.
It makes for difficult reading: it suggests that gay parents are more likely to commit child abuse, and makes wild claims that children of LGBT parents are more likely to be gay or asexual, mentally ill, or develop substance abuse issues.
This year, the group also sent Kim Davis on a speaking tour of Romanian towns and cities. As a Kentucky clerk whose job it was to issue marriage licenses, Davis won fame when she was briefly jailed in 2015 after refusing to do so for same-sex couples. …
ADF International, the global wing of the controversial US legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), has also supported the referendum campaign. In April, it co-hosted a “referendum for the family” conference at the Romanian Parliament in Bucharest, along with the Coalition for Family.
“The union between one man and one woman is timeless, universal, and unique. It expresses the reality that men and women bring distinct, irreplaceable gifts to family life,” said ADF International lawyer Adina Portaru at the conference. The group also filed a friend-of-the-court brief with Romania’s constitutional court in favour of the referendum.
Samoa: Prime Minister says Christian country will not allow ‘heathenistic’ practices like gay marriage
Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi denounced “same-sex marriage as an abomination and a ‘Sodom and Gomorrah practice’” at a press conference. More from Radio New Zealand:
He said there is no true Christian country in the world which would allow it and it would not be allowed in Samoa as long as it remained a Christian country.
Tuilaepa and his Human Rights Protection Party changed the country’s constitution earlier this year to formally make Samoa a Christian state.
Back in September Tuilaepa said in a radio address that his government would never allow “heathenistic practices” like abortion or same-sex marriage.
Uganda: Police shut down queer film festival
Police forcibly shut down the Queer Kampala International Film Festival on December 9. More from Human Rights Watch:
Uganda’s criminal code includes a colonial-era law prohibiting “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” with possible sentences of up to life in prison. The law very rarely leads to prosecutions, but police have used it as a pretext to shut numerous events targeting LGBT audiences and their allies over the past several years, such as the entire 2017 annual Pride Week scheduled events, parades and a fashion show in previous Pride Weeks, and a human rights education workshop in 2012.
In January 2014, President Yoweri Museveni signed into law the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which criminalized the undefined “promotion” of homosexuality and led to arrests, evictions, firings, and hate crimes against LGBT people. In August 2014, Uganda’s Constitutional Court declared the law null and void.
Ugandan officials have repeatedly banned events that they falsely claim “promote” homosexuality, Human Rights Watch said. A July 2014 High Court ruling, in violation of free assembly rights, endorsed Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo’s closure in 2012 of a human rights workshop organized by LGBT activists, claiming that workshop participants were “promoting” or “inciting” same-sex acts. Activists have appealed the ruling, but their appeal is yet to be heard.
In 2016, police raided a fashion show organized as part of the annual Pride celebrations – beating and humiliating participants, taking pictures of them without consent, and causing one participant to suffer severe injuries from jumping out of a window to escape police violence.
In August 2017, Lokodo ordered police to shut down all Pride events, stating that “No gay gathering and promotion can be allowed in Uganda,” media reports said.
Austria: Court sets schedule for marriage equality
The Constitutional Court ruled that a ban on same-sex couples marrying was unlawful discrimination, ordering that marriage equality be in place by the end of 2018.
Botswana: Court tells government to allow trans woman to change legal gender
A court ordered government officials to allow a transgender woman to change the gender in official registration and on her national Identity Card.
Italy: European Court of Human Rights slams failure to recognize same-sex couples’ marriages
On December 14 the European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy for refusing to recognize the unions of same-sex couples married in other countries:
The ECHR accepted that Italy’s choice not to allow same-sex marriages could not be condemned under human rights law, but the crux of the case was that the couples had not been able to obtain any kind of legal recognition for their unions.
The case was launched by six same-sex couples who had married abroad and then failed to get their union recognised by Italian authorities. Italy will have to pay €5,000 in damage compensation per applicant.
Following another negative sentence issued in 2015 by the ECHR, which forced Italy to create a legal framework for the recognition of same-sex couples’ rights, the dominantly Roman Catholic country passed a law in 2016 to allow same-sex couples to register their “civil union”, a provision which gives them much of the same rights as a married couple.
Some of the couples in the case registered their union under this new law, but the court recognised that they had suffered from unfair treatment until 2016.
Slovakia: President calls for public discussion of legal protection for same-sex couples
After meeting with LGBTI advocates, President Andrej Kiska called for public discussion of legal protections for same-sex couples:
The president voiced his understanding that the issue stirred up heated emotions three years ago and invited hatred into society with respect to an invalid referendum on the family.
“Unfortunately, this has resulted in the termination of any rational efforts to provide at least a minimal standard of legal protection for individuals living in relationships outside of wedlock,” said Kiska. “Of course, I’m talking about a standard that would respect the current valid constitutional protection extended to the institution of marriage.”
The President urged society to return to a discussion that should be led in a humane fashion and in a climate of mutual respect.
Singapore: HRW reports on anti-LGBT censorship
A Human Rights Watch report on suppression of free expression and assembly in Singapore includes a section on LGBT-related media guidelines and censorship, which “effectively prohibits any positive depiction of LGBT individuals that could counter the prevailing negative attitudes in Singapore toward them.” An excerpt:
The Media Development Authority effectively prohibits all positive depictions of LGBT lives. The MDA Free to Air Television Program Code states that “music associated with drugs, alternative lifestyles (e.g. homosexuality) or the worship of the occult or the devil should not be broadcast.” The Free to Air Radio Program Code says “information, themes or subplots on lifestyles such as homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexualism, transsexualism, transvestism, paedophilia and incest should be treated with utmost caution. Their treatment should not in any way promote, justify or glamorize such lifestyles. Explicit dialogue or information concerning the above topics should not be broadcast.”
Chirag Agarwal, a former Singaporean diplomat living in Australia, published a commentary in the South China Morning Post urging more Singaporeans to come out in order to shift public opinion, which currently leaves LGBT people “hiding in plain sight and suffering in silence.”
Namibia: Men married in South Africa sue government for recognition
Two men who were married in South Africa in 2015 sued government officials in an effort to have their marriage recognized, reports the Namibian. One of the men is a South African citizen, and the couple were seeking to prevent the government from treating him and the couple’s son (who they are in the process of adopting) as “prohibited immigrants.”
Colombia: Trans political candidate profiled
The Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers profiles Tatiana Piñeros, a transgender woman who is running for the Senate.
Chile: Presidential candidates address marriage equality
Presidential candidates Alejandro Guillier and Sebastian Pinera, facing each other in the December 17 runoff election, had a debate in which Pinera “stood by his conservative calls to retain the ‘traditional marriage’ between a man and a woman, while same-sex couples would be allowed to engage in a civil union.”
