LGBT-related Laws By Country or Territory
In modern times nine countries have no official heterosexist discrimination. They are Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, and Spain. This full non-discrimination includes the rights of marriage and adoption. Portugal has also marriage rights for same-sex couples but this right does not include same-sex adoption. The Canadian Blood Services’ policy indefinitely defers any man who has sex with another man, even once, since 1977. In the U.S., mandated by federal law Pub.L. 103–160 (10 U.S.C. § 654), the U.S. armed forces’ policy on homosexuality in the military, commonly known as Don’t ask, don’t tell, prohibited coming out ("a statement that a member is homosexual or bisexual" or anything that would reveal sexual orientation, i.e. talking about a boyfriend, girlfriend, or attractions) because it was considered tantamount to "a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts". More than 13,500 service members were discharged from the military under the 1993 law. However, the policy was repealed by Congress in December 2010. In the Senate, repeal passed by a majority of 63–33, including six Republicans voting in favour of gays serving openly in the military. The repeal was effective September 20th, 2011. Also in the U.S., LGBT people face different laws for certain medical procedures than other groups. For example, gay men have been prohibited from giving blood since 1983, and George W. Bush's FDA guidelines barred them from being sperm donors as of 2005, even though all donated sperm is screened for sexually-transmitted diseases.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights By Country
Famous quotes containing the words laws, country and/or territory:
“Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre of the human heart. The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“When the excessively shy force themselves to be forward, they are frequently surprisingly unsubtle and overdirect and even rude: they have entered an extreme region beyond their normal personality, an area of social crime where gradations don’t count; unavailable to them are the instincts and taboos that booming extroverts, who know the territory of self-advancement far better, can rely on.”
—Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)