Introduction to Global Studies by John McCormick

Author:John McCormick [McCormick, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan Education UK
Published: 2018-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

COMPARING NORTH AND SOUTH 7

COMPARING APPROACHES TO LGBT RIGHTS

The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people have drawn new attention in recent decades, with many changes coming in the North (although discrimination is still widely found), but resistance continuing in socially conservative parts of the South (see Keating and Burack, 2016). There is an ongoing debate about whether such rights are human rights or civil rights, and changes to law and policy have led to a patchwork quilt of legal provisions: these range from the nearly two dozen countries (mainly in Europe and the Americas) that now recognize same-sex marriage, to the nearly four dozen countries (mainly in Africa and the Middle East) where same-sex intercourse is illegal, or even – as in the cases of Saudi Arabia and Iran – punishable by death. Even in many progressive Northern states, the change of heart has been relatively recent; while same-sex male intercourse has been legal in France since 1791, and in the Netherlands since 1811, it has been legal in Britain only since 1967, and nationwide in the United States only since 2003.

At the heart of the debate over LGBT rights has been the question of whether or not to regard marriage as a right that should be extended to same-sex couples, giving them the standard entitlements of married couples in matters of social security, taxation, immigration, and inheritance, and the adoption of children. The Netherlands in 2001 became the first country in the world to recognize same-sex marriage, and it has been followed by ten other European countries, along with (among others) Argentina, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.

LGBT rights came relatively late to the agenda of the United Nations, where it was only in 2011 that the Human Rights Council passed its first resolution calling for a report on discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Support for LGBT rights has come from nearly 100 countries, covering Australasia, Europe, and almost all of North and South America, along with Japan, the Philippines, South Africa, and South Korea. But more than 50 mainly north African and Middle Eastern countries oppose such rights, while the balance of just over 40 mainly central/southern African and Asian states (including China, India, and Russia) have taken no formal position in the UN either for or against LGBT rights. Opinions on homosexuality vary enormously, based on a combination of religious, social and political arguments – see examples in Figure 7.1 – and standing as a prime example of the tensions between relativism and universalism.

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