LGBT Rights In South America
Laws governing Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights are complex in the Americas, and acceptance of LGBT persons varies widely. Same-sex marriages have been legal in Canada nationwide since 2005, in Argentina since 2010, and in Brazil nationwide since 2013. Same-sex marriage in Uruguay will become legal on August 1, 2013. Same-sex marriages in Mexico City are recognized nationwide, while in the United States, same-sex marriages are recognized by several states, but not the federal government. Same-sex marriages are legal in the Caribbean Netherlands, while marriages performed in the Netherlands are recognized in Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.
Furthermore, some other nations have laws recognizing other types of same-sex unions, as well as LGBT adoption and military service by LGBT people. However, eleven other nations, all of them in the former British West Indies, still have criminal punishment for buggery on their statute books. These eleven countries include Jamaica, Dominica, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, Antigua & Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada Saint Kitts and Nevis & Belize.
Read more about LGBT Rights In South America: Religion and LGBT Acceptance, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words rights, south and/or america:
“But you must know the class of sweet women—who are always so happy to declare “they have all the rights they want”; “they are perfectly willing to let their husbands vote for them”Mare and always have been numerous, though it is an occasion for thankfulness that they are becoming less so.”
—Eliza “Mother” Stewart (1816–1908)
“The Great South Beach of Long Island,... though wild and desolate, as it wants the bold bank,... possesses but half the grandeur of Cape Cod in my eyes, nor is the imagination contented with its southern aspect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Can a free people restrain crime without sacrificing fundamental liberties and a heritage of compassion?... Let us show that we can temper together those opposite elements of liberty and restraint into one consistent whole. Let us set an example for the world of a law-abiding America glorying in its freedom as well as its respect for law.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)