What country do you live in? What are the laws concerning homosexuality?

Question

I live in South Africa. We have gay marriage, and anti-discrimination laws.

What are the laws in your country?

Hoe gaan dit Angel? :P man never really see South Africans on here :(

Answer 1

I live in Italy.

In 2004, Tuscany became the first Italian region to ban discrimination against homosexuals in the areas of employment, education, public services, and accommodations.

Homosexuals are not officially banned from military service, yet no administrative regulation or law explicitly allows them to serve openly either.

Nevertheless, since that which is not forbidden is legal, such a law would probably only have a symbolic value.

In February 2007 the Prodi government proposed to the national parliament a new law allowing a restricted version of civil union, called DICO, which would grant rights to unmarried couples both homosexuals and heterosexuals in areas of labour law, inheritance, tax and medical assistance.

The law now faces strong opposition from the Catholic church and from Christian democrats members of parliament.

Answer 2

I live in the Netherlands. We also have gay marriage and anti-discrimination laws. But there is unfortunately a discussion going on lately because some officials refuse to marry a gay couple. This goes against our law. Our law says that we are all equal and therefore should all have the right to get married, no matter if you are straight, bi or gay.
The discussion is f you can force those officials to do what the law tells, or that you send the couple who wants to get married to an other official (ambtenaar).

By the way, I love the South African language.. although it is different then Dutch we probably understand each other :)

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Answer 3

Thank you for asking this question!

I am from Arizona, USA. No laws against gay marriages, but some people keep trying to get a law passed. So far, it hasn't worked (thank goodness). However, no gay marriages have taken place, either. (Unless it was just a religious ceremony which carries no weight in law.) The best people can do is fill out "power of attorney" paperwork and stuff like that to get some of the rights they should be allowed to have.

There are laws against discrimination and they seem to work pretty well. Being gay is not a big news item here.

Most big companies allow "partner" health insurance and pensions. (That applies for gay and straight non-married people).

Most people are not for the gay idea as they do not understand it, they think it is "unnatural", or they think their religion prohibits it. However, I think those who are recently college-educated know better.

Answer 4

Hoe gaan dit? dit gaan goed met my. I live in England and although the laws are in place (i.e civil partnership etc) the reality is that, as else where in the world people are bigots. Ignorance and indoctrination I'm afraid rears its ugly head. I lived on the East Rand during the 70's and 80's, but I'm from Manchester. Tot siens

Answer 5

I live in the USA. State of North Carolina. There are some anti-discrimination laws, but not a lot. Nothing allowing for gay marriage, or civil unions or anything of the sort. It's a screwed up time, things are changing, but not very fast, and not necessarily in the favor of gays

Answer 6

I live in Canada, I don't know about anti-discrimination laws, but I believe that if an LGBT person is harassed or beaten or loses a job on the basis that they're protected, I think it's considered a hate crime, but again I'm not sure.

But we do have same-sex marriage, actually they just changed the meaning of regular marriage, so that it's all encompassing.

Answer 7

In the US, more of the states are slowly approving gay marriage or civil union laws. Anti discrimination laws are being slowed up unfortunately.

Answer 8

I live in the UK. At my side we have civil unions, but not gay marriage yet. Couples (gay and straight) can have sex at 16 and we have anti-discrimination laws to protect gays in the workplace.

In the UK we do have Freedom of Speech, but we also have laws to protect people from harassment. I can’t walk up to someone and say “I think you’re gay and I don’t like gays”. It doesn’t matter if they’re gay or not, that’s harassment and I could get charged with breach of the peace. Our laws say “There is a breach of the peace whenever a person causes harm or appears likely to cause harm to persons or property, or acts in a manner, the natural consequence of which, is to provoke others to violence.”

Answer 9

I live in India and we don't know what homosexuality is. Anything that attempts to damage our glorious culture, we'll oppose with all the religious fanatics that we can lay our hands on.

One of the quirks of the Indian constitution is that we are still stuck with the archaic laws of colonial Britain even though Britain has moved on. Anyway to answer your question, homosexuality, or atleast practising homosexuality(!), is illegal in India, and to "come out" over here, would be to voluntarily enter social ostracism. And what do hapless gay men and women here do? Its ok for gay men. They go straight ahead and marry women who won't breathe a word of it for fear of social ridicule. Its ok for gay women too. How many Indian women do you think have choice in their marriages anyway?

Answer 10

Singapore.
And there is this BIG hoo-hah right now about a law which deems "gross-indecency" as illegal. Though it is not acted on, it exists merely to satisfy the very conservative population. The goverment keeps saying that it should be abolished but they aren't doing anything.
Disappointing.