Europe’s Last Sodomy Law Repealed

I’m glad there’s so much progress in Europe. Oh that it were the same the world around.

The parliament of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus voted Monday to repeal the last law in Europe criminalizing same-sex intercourse.

The bill repealing the sodomy law, passed with 28 votes in favor, one opposed, and 21 abstentions, now heads to the territory’s president, Derviş Eroğlu, but LGBT activists tell BuzzFeed they have assurances that he will not veto the legislation. The move comes partly in response to a complaint against the law filed in the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in 1981 that sodomy laws were a breach of human rights accords in the case Dudgeon v. the United Kingdom.

Cyprus, which lies in the Mediterranean between Greece and Turkey, is a former British colony now divided into Greek and Turkish sections. Northern Cyprus is officially known as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and its government is recognized only by Turkey.

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Police Violence In India Drives A Gay Couple To The U.S.

As much as I feel for these two guys and what they experienced in India, I marvel at how people from other countries are naive enough to think that we allow just anyone into this country. We cannot, nor do I think we should. We may be more accepting of gays than in India, but even if every single state in this country were to approve gay marriage, there would still be those who are against it.

Millions of gay Indians suddenly became criminals when the Indian Supreme Court restored the country’s sodomy law in December. But the ruling actually helped set one couple free.

When the ruling was issued, two men from northwest India had spent more than six months in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in El Paso, Texas, waiting for a judge to decide on their petition for asylum. It was a bitter ending to their yearlong journey across more than 10 countries to reach the United States. They had left India after death threats from their family and being targeted for police abuse because of their sexual orientation, though at the time the law criminalizing same-sex relationships was suspended by a lower court ruling. And when they finally reached the country that they expected to protect their rights, they wound up in a facility that felt exactly like prison.

The whole experience had felt cruelly backward to the couple, so it was perhaps fitting that the U.S. released them from detention only when they formally became criminals at home.

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India Supreme Court Upholds Sodomy Law

Another unfortunate setback. 😦

My co-worker is from India, but she’s not here today or I’d ask her thoughts. I’m reasonably certain she’d just shake her head and find it just as unbelievable as I.

After a 12 year legal battle, the Supreme Court of India overruled a lower court ruling striking down a law criminalizing consensual same-sex intercourse on Wednesday morning.

The Supreme Court has set aside the sweeping 2009 ruling of the Delhi High Court that struck down the sodomy law, known as Section 377, and referred the question to parliament.

The legal organization that brought the case, the Lawyers Collective, tweeted from the courtroom that this is a “major setback to LGBT rights.”

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