Nations with anti-LGBT laws: 50% Muslim, 44% Christian

Many Christian-majority nations dropped anti-gay laws, Muslim nations haven’t

This article was updated and corrected on Feb. 6, 2024.

Half (33) of the world’s 66 countries that have anti-LGBT laws are nations where a majority of the citizens are Muslims.

By comparison, 29 Christian-majority countries account for 44 percent of the countries that still have anti-LGBT laws on their books.

In recent years, the number of Christian-majority nations with anti-homosexuality laws has shrunk, both through court rulings (Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda in 2022; Trinidad in 2018; Belize in 2016) and through legislative action (Cook Islands in 2023, Singapore in 2022, Angola and Botswana in 2019, Seychelles and Nauru in 2016, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Palau in 2014).

Similar laws have been dropped in Hindu-majority Mauritius (2023), Buddhist-majority Bhutan (2021) and in Hindu-majority India (2018).

However, no Muslim-majority nation has acted recently to repeal an anti-LGBT law.

For technical reasons (keeping the original story’s Internet address unchanged to allow easy online searches), this article mirrors a newly updated Erasing 76 Crimes page, also titled   “Nations with anti-LGBT laws: 50% Muslim, 44% Christian“. 

Here are the nations in each category:

Muslim majority

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1. Afghanistan
2. Algeria
3. Bangladesh
4. Brunei
5. Chad
6. Comoros
7. Egypt
8. Gambia
9. Indonesia (Aceh Province and South Sumatra only)
10. Iran
11. Iraq
12. Kuwait
13. Lebanon (law ruled invalid in one court in 2014 and disqualified for use against same-sex intimacy in another court in 2017)
14. Libya
15. Malaysia
16. Maldives
17. Mauritania
18. Morocco
19. Oman
20. Pakistan
21. Palestine/Gaza Strip — lacking broad international recognition as a country
22. Qatar
23. Saudi Arabia
24. Senegal
25. Somalia
26. South Sudan
27. Sudan
28. Syria
29. Tunisia
30. Turkmenistan
31. United Arab Emirates
32. Uzbekistan
33. Yemen

Christian majority

Most, if not all, of these countries inherited their laws from the period when they were British colonies.

1. Barbados
2. Burundi
3. Cameroon
4. Dominica (But see “Dominica leader: No enforcement of anti-gay law” )
5. Ethiopia
6. Ghana
7. Grenada
8. Guinea
9. Guyana
10. Jamaica
11. Kenya
12. Kiribati
13. Liberia
14. Malawi
15. Namibia
16. Papua New Guinea
17. Samoa
18. Solomon Islands
19. Sierra Leone
20. St. Lucia
21. St Vincent & the Grenadines
22. Swaziland / Eswatini
23. Tanzania
24. Togo
25. Tonga
26. Tuvalu
27. Uganda
28. Zambia
29. Zimbabwe

Other

1. Eritrea — roughly 50-50 Christian-Muslim. Some surveys give a edge to Christianity; others, to Islam.
2. Myanmar
3. Nigeria — roughly 50-50 Christian-Muslim
4. Sri Lanka