Nations with anti-LGBT laws: 55% Muslim, 39% Christian

This article was updated in June 2026.

More than half (36) of the world’s 66 countries that have anti-LGBT laws are nations where a majority of the citizens are Muslims.

By comparison, 26 Christian-majority countries account for 39 percent of the countries that still have anti-LGBT laws on their books.

Two years ago, in contrast with the current 55%-39% split, the tally of countries with anti-homosexuality laws was 50%-44% Muslim to Christian.

In recent years, the number of Christian-majority nations with anti-homosexuality laws has shrunk.

Many of those laws were overturned through court rulings (Dominica in 2024; St. Lucia in 2025; Namibia in 2024;  Mauritius in 2023; Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda in 2022; Belize in 2016.

Others were repealed by through legislative action (Niue in 2024; Cook Islands in 2023; Singapore in 2022; Angola and Botswana in 2019; Seychelles and Nauru in 2016; Mozambique,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).

In Trinidad, a court in 2018 overturned the nation’s anti-gay law, but an appeals court reversed that decision in 2025.

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

No Muslim-majority nation has repealed an anti-LGBT law recently. In fact,  Muslim-majority Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger  all enacted anti-LGBT laws in the past two years.

Explanations for that trend include:

  • African nations’ unflagging resentment toward their former colonial masters in Europe, where LGBT rights are widely accepted, and
  • Islam’s traditional hostility to homosexuality. As the Middle East Forum website stated last year:

“Homosexuality is a sin punishable by death, according to the Quran, hadith, and Islamic Law.

“Within many Islamic societies, such a stance on homosexuality is unequivocal: It is a major sin with no room for reinterpretation. … The Australian National Imams Council, representing over 200 imams in a country that prides itself on its liberalism, asserts that homosexuality is a forbidden action and anyone who partakes in it is a disobedient servant to God. Their view represents the rule rather than exception among Islamic scholars and institutions. …

“While some argue for a re-examination of Islamic teachings on same-sex relationships, suggesting that traditional interpretations may be misinformed or contextually outdated, these perspectives remain marginal within the broader Muslim community.”


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Map of countries criminalizing homosexuality, June 2026
Map of the 66 countries where sexual relations between people of the same sex are illegal. YELLOW countries have sodomy laws that are currently being challenged before local courts. Sri Lanka, in PINK, currently has a bill before its parliament to repeal its sodomy law. Indonesia, in ORANGE, has laws that criminalize homosexuality only in some subnational jurisdictions. All states in RED have nationwide sodomy laws and no known legislative efforts or court challenges to remove them.

Here are the nations in each category:

Muslim majority

  1. Afghanistan
  2. Algeria
  3. Bangladesh
  4. Brunei
  5. Burkina Faso (64% Muslim, 26% Christian)
  6. Chad
  7. Comoros
  8. Egypt
  9. Gambia
  10. Indonesia (Aceh Province and South Sumatra only)
  11. Iran
  12. Iraq
  13. Kuwait
  14. Lebanon (law ruled invalid in one court in 2014 and disqualified for use against same-sex intimacy in another court in 2017)
  15. Libya
  16. Malaysia
  17. Maldives
  18. Mali
  19. Mauritania
  20. Morocco
  21. Niger
  22. Oman
  23. Pakistan
  24. Palestine/Gaza Strip — lacking broad international recognition as a country
  25. Qatar
  26. Saudi Arabia
  27. Senegal
  28. Somalia
  29. South Sudan
  30. Sudan
  31. Syria
  32. Tunisia
  33. Turkmenistan
  34. United Arab Emirates
  35. Uzbekistan
  36. Yemen

Christian majority

Most of these countries inherited their laws from the period when they were British colonies.

  1. Burundi
  2. Cameroon
  3. Ethiopia
  4. Ghana
  5. Grenada
  6. Guinea
  7. Guyana
  8. Jamaica
  9. Kenya
  10. Kiribati
  11. Liberia
  12. Malawi
  13. Papua New Guinea
  14. Samoa
  15. Solomon Islands
  16. Sierra Leone
  17. St Vincent & the Grenadines
  18. Swaziland / Eswatini
  19. Tanzania
  20. Togo
  21. Tonga
  22. Trinidad and Tobago
  23. Tuvalu
  24. Uganda
  25. Zambia
  26. 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