Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2015, the day after Ireland’s same-sex marriage referendum; the country count and examples describe the legal situation at that time. It has since changed in many countries: Singapore, for example, repealed its ban on sex between men in 2022.
While Ireland has voted overwhelmingly to legalise same-sex marriage, giving it exactly the same rights as heterosexual marriage, there are still many countries in the world where being gay is literally punishable by death.
Some countries allow same-sex marriage, although with limited rights, while in Russia, for example, even though being gay is not a crime, gay people are often insulted, humiliated and beaten by a large part of the population, and those who do it go unpunished. It is not illegal to be gay in Russia, but any kind of homosexual “propaganda” is.
But the most extreme cases are found in 79 countries around the world, among them Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan and Singapore, where the penalties for committing “such a crime” range from forced psychiatric treatment to prison sentences and forced labour for life. Others go as far as the death penalty by public stoning.
And while the United States has embraced homosexuality and same-sex marriage, it still has several states where it is illegal.
You can see the full list of countries where being gay is a crime here.
Featured image: William Murphy, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
