Angola decriminalizes same-sex relationships, bans anti-gay discrimination
New penal code ends a colonial-era ban on gay sex that punished people with 14 years in prison By Riley Gillis on March 1, 2021
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In a rare but welcome move, Angola has decriminalized same-sex relationships.
Angola’s penal code criminalizing homosexuality dates to the colonial era, when the African nation was a Portugese colony, and condemned same-sex sexual relationships as one of multiple “vices against nature.” As a result, gay people faced prison sentences of at least fourteen years.
After establishing a new penal code in 2019, the country’s president signed it into the law in November 2020, and it officially took effect on February 9.
The European Union s Court of Justice now has to decide if a binational lesbian couple s daughter will be granted a Bulgarian birth certificate and receive citizenship.
Angola has decriminalised homosexuality, lifting an archaic ban on same-sex relationships and introducing anti-discrimination protections.
A new law overturned a ban on same-sex relationships which was inherited from when the country was a Portuguese colony. The ban described same-sex relationships as a “vice against nature”.
Activist Jean-Luc Romero-Michel tweeted that the law was a “great step forward” in the fight against state-sponsored discrimination against the LGBT+ community in the Southern African nation.
He wrote: “The law decriminalising homosexuality adopted in Angola in 2019 took effect today.
“Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is now reprehensible and even punishable by prison.
A new law decriminalising same-sex sexual relations in Angola has gone into effect on Wednesday. According to reports, the new law overturned a colonial-era ban on homosexual relations which described it as “vice against nature”. Activist Jean-Luc Romero-Michel tweeted, “The law decriminalising homosexuality adopted in Angola in 2019 took effect today. Discrimination on the basis […]