The areas where you’re criminalized just for being gay form a big three-hooked figure: one hook reaching around West and North Africa, one hugging the Indian Ocean littoral from Swaziland on up, and one stretching across nearly the whole southern tier of Asia, trailing off into the Pacific. One other large feature is the ring of nations in West and Central Africa who don’t criminalize gays. There are very few outliers anywhere else in the world (just a smattering in the Caribbean).
So how do we explain this? The institutionally homophobic areas stretch across many different cultures and religions. Is the striking contiguity of their areas just a coincidence? Otherwise what else do they share in common besides homophobia in the laws? (and how did that decriminalized ring take shape in West Africa?)
Also noteworthy: most of the gay-death-penalty states are clustered in the Middle East, at the core area of where the three big hooks all meet. When I looked closely, one detail really freaked me out. The map shows death penalty for gays in the UAE. And all this time I’d heard of Dubai’s reputation as the main gay party mecca. Gays coming to party in a country that would kill them?
Muslim majority nations do account for the biggest chunk, but by no means all of it. What about Hindu India, Buddhist Burma, Marxist Angola? Islam doesn’t figure in there. There’s also Papua New Guinea and several Pacific island nations which Islam has nothing to do with, meanwhile by contrast Muslim Indonesia is cool, which kind of shoots holes in your theory. And what the heck’s wrong with Nicaragua?
I have to ask the question, how the fuck can any country calling itself civilized, put to death a human being merely because he/she prefers a relationship with someone of the same sex.
Just because a country has laws on the books doesn’t mean they’re enforced, of course. US states still had anti-sodomy laws up till a few years ago (that could theoretically get you life in prision on Idaho), but they rarely were enforced. A map that showed number of people actually convicted under these laws per year would probably give a better read tolerance of gays by region.
Good point. I would be interested in knowing how many cases there were of people put to death in those 6 red countries (and life in prison in the one or two pink countries) in recent years.
Not to mention, while Iraq doesn’t have anti-gay laws on the books, now that Bush has invaded and caused a civil war, Islamist vigilante death squads like the Badr militia have been drawing up lists of queer Iraqis and killing them like dogs in the street. Gays flee Iraq as Shia death squads find a new target | World news | The Guardian
Many of the countries in the “West Africa Ring” have realitively unstable governments and not much in the way of laws regarding anything. I don’t think, for example, that Central African Republic" is so much cool with gays as much as they have other things to worry about.
I don’t think there is any easy answer. Around here, homosexuality gets a bad name because (I am not making this up) there is a widespread belief that gays are members of secret witchcraft societies that do all kinds of bad things. Homosexuality and sorcery are considered intricately linked. It’s kind of a random belief. Not something you can chalk up to a single social force. And this is almost all coming from the Christian South, not the live and let live Muslim North. Africa is a big ass continent with many different cultures and limited exchange of information. I don’t think you can generalize well.
I do have a couple quesitons about the map. I know for a fact that homosexuality is officially frowned upon in Nepal. I have seen people banned from entering the country based on being gay. I also wonder which countries enforce these laws. Just like America has many uninforced laws on the books, plenty of others do, too.
That’s quite interesting.
At first as I began reading “this is coming from the Christian South” my mind raced ahead of my eyes and wondered," Wait, which country is she talking about? America?"
Come to think of it…You could say gay-friendly Congressman Keith Ellison is from the Muslim North!
Checking through the World of Islam set, it looks like countries with a core Sunni population have a decently high correlation, with the notable exception of Iran (although Iran is heavily dominated by Sharia anyways). Especially with the African hook and the notable exception of Central Africa as having anti-gay laws on the books. Also, although India is Hindu, it has a notable Muslim population. Even so, I’m not implying Muslims by any stretch are the only ones with Anti-gay bias, but Islam seems to be the only major religion that also (presently) is a major determinant toward law in a state. And as any statistician can tell you there’ll always be outliers and never be a 1.00 R2. I’d say offhand that the most statistically significant factor in anti-gay laws is Islam (actually, why not just religion) as a factor in the nation’s politics.
Also note the others above who point out another important factor is cultural, not necessarily laws on the books.
That’s true. And it’s also true that Muslim culture (as well as Victorian culture) have had major impacts on Hindu culture in the area of social mores. But, there are plenty of Hindus who view homosexuality as teh evil solely from the standpoint of Hindu culture and religious justification. Because of the syncretic nature of Hinduism, it’s probably not possible to trace back where a specific prohibition originates, but even if India had a tiny Muslim and Victorian influence, I could easily picture it having homophobic laws.
That’s not to say there aren’t certain exceptions, such as with the Hijras. Furthermore, I’ve heard that there’s quite an active gay culture in Mumbai. But my general feeling is that at least a significant minority of Hindus, if not a majority, have no problem with outlawing homosexuality.
Just to clarify, my comments above are not meant to imply that you think Muslims are the only ones with an anti-gay bias. I just wanted to clarify some points.
That’s a good point. We’d also have to look to social law, that is the customs that might be enforced with the threat of violence and death. It’s possible that in some of these countries with no laws, gay people are routinely killed or injured through social enforcement rather than through official governmental structures.
No I didn’t mean to imply that that’s the only thing you thought, I was merely expressing my opinion based on the full responses to the thread, that is, my response could be thought of in the same way, that I was condemning Islam, I was just trying in my own way to clarify that that’s not my only thought on the matter.