Report: Lebanon court rejects anti-gay law

A court in Lebanon has ruled that homosexuality is natural and is not a criminal offense. [Contrary to an earlier version of this article, the ruling was not made by the Supreme Court in Lebanon.]

For English-speakers, details of the ruling must await a translation of an Arabic-language account of the decision. But a dispatch from Human Rights Watch provides helpful information about the decision.

[There is no confirmation of a statement contained in an early account of the ruling, stating that the court’s ruling included a declaration that discrimination based on sexual orientation is illegal.]

For the particular case before the court, the ruling set aside  Article 534 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which calls for a year in prison for men convicted of “sexual intercourse against nature.”

A separate French-language account of the court decision stated that a lower court in the Metn region east of Beirut ruled that Article 534 does not apply if homosexuality is exercised as a right and in a non-abusive way.

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Last spring, the Lebanese Medical Association for Sexual Health (LebMASH) challenged Article 534, arguing that because “homosexuality is a natural variation of human sexuality,” it should be exempt from the law forbidding sexual intercourse “against nature.”

Related articles:

• Lebanon appeal: LGBT sexuality isn’t ‘against nature’
   (May 2016, 76crimes.com)
• Report: Lebanon targets gay men in 3 raids, 45 arrests (August 2014, 76crimes.com)
• Anti-gay Lebanon: 27 arrests in raid on Turkish bath (August 2014, 76crimes.com)
• Lebanon’s anti-LGBT law is invalid, judge rules‎ (March 2014, 76crimes.com)
• Report cites torture of Lebanon LGBTs, others; seeks reform (June 2013, 76crimes.com)