Gay rights in YOUR country

[Canucker]

In Canada Gay people can marry and adopt.

The last remaining issues in this country are:

1) The Homosexual age of consent is 18, and the Heterosexual age of consent is 14 (will be raised to 16 in a month)

2) Any male who has had sex in with another male in the last 5 years, cannot donate blood or be an organ doner due to "high risk lifestyle"

[pocket_pilgrim]

romania is a very homophobic country.

still, i think there are some laws against sexual discrimination and whatnot so it's not completely hopeless. and now with the UE thing i expect it to get a lot better. mile:

[D-Dave]

In France, we have only civil partnership (PACS) but the rights it gives are becoming roughly equal to marriage (taxes, inheritance...) and it's a lot simpler in case of separation than a divorce (so many straight couples chooses it too).
For adoption it's another story, France has been punished by European court for discrimination for not letting gay couples adopt, but I don't think it will change anything as the majority of people are against gay adoption. (the child book "Mary has two mothers" (not sure about the exact title) was a mini-scandal.)
Legally though, gays can adopt as singles, but that's not going to happen any time soon if the pre-adoption inquest reveals they're gay.

[sudanese]

i suggest that we should also disscus social acceptance of gays , i mean everyday life encounters , i don't mean strained or official behaviours of the others , but how u feel the others when in the mid of a conversation or so they know about your sexuality for the first time : shocked , embarrassed, feeling strange n trying to hide it , scorning , natural , .. etc

in my country : lashed , imprisoned , may be executed
once it wasn't penalized
but to be honest , the social rejection is the major problem

.......

i have a different opinion about marriage which may bring me to trouble with many of you , i think the most important thing in evaluating the civil union / marriage issue is the equal rights , not the names .. for one reason , the world ( marriage ) has a cultural load , some of its components don't really fit the gay couples life ... folks , don't you think that legal recognition of us should be tailored to match our needs , not to give us unrepresentative nomenclature . we should fight the battle of equity to make the system recognize us and give us our rights , not to be squeezed into the system

[Dan1089]

South Africans are very confrontational people.Growing up,I still remember people coming up to my parents and saying stuff like "Have you no shame?".That hasn't changed much but now gay people esp. effeminate guys are ridiculed or laughed at on the streets.Opposite case with lesbians though,people just make "confused" faces or just look away.

[Canucker]

I sort of agree on the marriage opinion of sudanese.

Even though its legal in Canada, it carries a lot of baggage with the religious.

Civil unions, PACS, domestic partnerships, etc. etc. that are equal in benefits to marriage are satisfactory to me.

People should have equal rights, not equal title.

I mean look at what this whole debate is doing, just pitting the religious and traditionalists against us. If I was in America, I'd fight for civil unions, but not take on the marriage battle.

In Canada as far as on the street thing, if your in a city, its no big deal. I mean Canada has so many different types of people, that if your in an urban centre and gay, nobody gives a damn.

But in rural Canada and smaller cities, its a bit more of an issue and frowned down upon.

High Schools (at least in my area) still have rampant anti-gay remarks (I don't use the word "homophobia", its a silly word) all the time.

Coming out in High Schools is a lot harder than in University/College.

[Jim]

Here in the US, we have a far different system than in most other nations. When the founders of the republic formed a national government after the Revolution against Britain, they allowed the individual sovereign states to have separate powers from the Federal government.

So called gay rights are dependent upon where you live, in which of the Fifty states you reside, or in the District of Columbia (Washington DC)

A good example would be, recently President Bush supported a standing request that by the government of Mexico that a Mexican citizen who was illegally inside of the US was being put to death by the State of Texas, for the crime of murder.

The US President and the Mexican government brought the case to the Federal courts in the US. The ruling was that the President and the US Government had no jurisdiction over Texas in that case, and the man was executed.

Gay rights are the same, the Federal Government of the US has little to do with the laws of the individual states.

Mind you, the US Congress could pass a law about gay rights, but they have not done so. If they did, it would apply to the entire nation. For all of his big talk, Bill Clinton never introduced a bill for the rights of gay people during his eight years as president.

[princealbertofb]

romania is a very homophobic country.

still, i think there are some laws against sexual discrimination and whatnot so it's not completely hopeless. and now with the UE thing i expect it to get a lot better. mile:

Romania is not only homophobic, it appears... it is also not very friendly towards women and little girls...
Abortion is illegal, I think, or so the radio says today... and so they think they are doing one of their 11 year-old citizens a favour by letting her abort (exceptionally) because she was made pregnant by her uncle???? (reason, it might injure her mentally or morally later)...

The mind boggles... i should bloody well hope so.