Ohio referendum tomorrow could stall LGBT rights progress
Israel recognizes same-sex immigrant couple's online Utah marriage
Human Rights Watch has released a report on the status of human rights for LGBT people in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Unsurprisingly, it’s not great, and HRW has a bunch of suggestions, including repealing the buggery law, passing an anti-discrimination law, and sensitizing police forces to LGBT issues. A case seeking to strike down the buggery law is awaiting a ruling in the local court.
A lawmaker in Mexico’s Puebla state has proposed a bill to automatically recognize the children of same-sex couples.
Israel’s population authority has officially recognized the marriage of a same-sex immigrant couple from Russia, who married online via Utah’s marriage service. Recognition of Utah marriages is still not regular procedure for immigrants to Israel, but the government appears to be moving in that direction.
The Japan Times has a (paywalled) profile of a same-sex couple in South Korea who have overcome legal barriers in their home country to have their first child.
Ohio voters will decide on a referendum tomorrow that seeks to make it harder for citizens to organize referendums and constitutional amendments, in a cynical Republican ploy to derail a November referendum seeking to repeal Republicans’ laws banning abortion. It’s also part of a wider Republican push to make referendums harder for citizens to win, which is coming in response to an increasing pattern of voters going around gerrymandered Republican legislatures to pass popular left-wing priorities, including ending abortion restrictions, promoting LGBT rights, raising minimum wages, restoring voting privileges, expanding Medicaid, etc.
In Georgia (Atlanta), state prosecutors are suing to overturn a state law that would pressure them to prosecute every case that lands in their lap – an unworkable requirement, especially given that many laws on the Georgia statute books are unconstitutional and usually ignored. One prosecutor has already dropped his standing order not to prosecute adultery cases, for instance, and sodomy arrests could be next.
Last month, Ghana’s parliament voted to abolish the death penalty, and the bill is expected to be signed into law by the President. Ghana will become the 26th African country to abolish the death penalty, and 176 people will likely be removed from death row because of it (though Ghana has not executed anyone in 30 years). The death penalty remains in place for treason; it would require a constitutional amendment to remove that, and some parliamentarians have begun talking about doing that. This is part of a global campaign that has seen victories around the world, but especially in Africa, where Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, and Zambia all repealed their death penalties last year. Ghana followed up that achievement last week by passing a law banning accusations of witchcraft.
Longtime followers of mine know that I’m a bit of an obsessive X-Men fan, and during the pandemic, I started blogging about my re-read of the entire 60-year publishing history of the character Iceman, who was brought out of the closet in 2015. The series Iceman Is A Homosexual has now reached 1997, with the latest installment that went up today. Enjoy!
