Criminal Laws
In 1951, a revision of the national criminal code decriminalized private, adult, non-commercial and consensual sodomy, with the age of consent set at 16.
Periodic government crackdowns on homosexuals tends to focus on male cruising, public displays of affection and prostitution. In 2008, Saad Manasir, Governor of Amman, pledged to continue with the crackdown until, "we eradicate any trace of male homosexuals in the society."
While legal, traditional Islamic morality deems it to be a sin and there have been reports of bias motivated crimes, including murder, directed at LGBT Jordanians. Often these crimes are vigilante honor killings directed at a family member whose "illicit" sexuality is seen as bringing shame to the family. In 1999, a Jordanian family living in the United States repeatedly beat their adult daughter and attempted to forcibly return her home after they discovered that she was gay.
This abuse does not appear to be official government policy, although the government seems reluctant to come to the aid of such an unpopular class of people. The Jordanian criminal code does provide lesser penalties for a man killing his wife or kin for engaging in "illicit" sexual relations.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights In Jordan
Famous quotes containing the words criminal and/or laws:
“Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind’s inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,—the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts’ shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The laws of custom make our [returning a visit] necessary. O how I hate this vile custom which obliges us to make slaves of ourselves! to sell the most precious property we boast, our time;—and to sacrifice it to every prattling impertinent who chooses to demand it!”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)