One in four people say those in same-sex relationships 'should be charged as criminals'

More than one in four people across the world think people engaging in same-sex relationships should be charged as criminals, according to a new survey of 77 countries and territories. However, there were major divisions in attitudes towards the criminalisation of those engaging in same-sex relationships when broken down across regions, the 2017 Ilga-Riwi global attitudes survey to sexual and gender minorities found. Almost half of respondents (45%) in the 15 African countries surveyed said those who have same-sex relationships should be charged as criminals, a sentiment shared by 36% of respondents in the Middle East. At the other end of the spectrum, 15% of respondents from Australia and New Zealand said they agreed with this sentiment, along with 19% of participants in North America (the US and Canada combined), South America and western Europe. [...]

In the UK, where homosexuality has been decriminalised for 50 years, one in six people (17%) agreed that "people who engage in romantic or sexual relationships with people of the same sex should be charged as criminals". In Australia the figure stood at 16%, while 18% of US respondents agreed with the statement. "It is worrying that these attitudes towards criminalisation hover around the 20% mark in many developed countries," said lead survey researcher and co-author of the report, Aengus Carroll. He added that this was partly due to continued prevalence of a "traditional values matrix" and a cohort of people who mistakenly equate homosexuality to "darker things like paedophilia". Across all the countries surveyed, 28.5% of respondents to the survey said that people who engage in same-sex relationships should be charged as criminals.

source: Article < One in four people say those in same-sex relationships 'should be charged as criminals' > by Pamela Duncan; www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/31/one-in-four-people-say-those-in-same-sex-relationships-should-be-charged-as-criminals-survey-77-countries; The Guardian; 31 October 2017