In England and Great Britain, sodomy remained a capital offense punishable by hanging until 1861. In the 1530s, during the reign of Henry VIII, England passed the Buggery Act, which made sexual relations between men a criminal offense punishable by death. The judicial systems of many predominantly Muslim countries invoked Islamic law ( Sharīʿah) in a wide range of contexts, and many sexual or quasi-sexual acts, including same-sex intimacy, were criminalized in those countries and made subject to severe penalties, including execution.īeginning in the 16th century, lawmakers in England began to categorize sexual relations between males as criminal rather than simply immoral. Religious admonitions against sexual relations between individuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behaviour, but most legal codes in Europe were silent on the subject of homosexuality and bisexuality.
This article will use the term in the latter sense.) Gay rights prior to the 20th century (Although the term gay is commonly used in reference to homosexual males, it is also used more generally to refer to homosexual males together with some or all other orientations within the LGBTQ community. Gay rights movement, also called gay liberation movement, civil rights movement that advocates equal rights for LGBTQ persons (i.e., for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender persons, and queer persons) seeks to eliminate sodomy laws and calls for an end to discrimination against LGBTQ persons in employment, credit, housing, public accommodations, and other areas of life.
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