Homophobia Rising In Countries With No Same Sex Marriage: Study

A massive study surveying more than 330,000 people over a 14-year period has found that positive social attitudes toward the LGBTQ community can be actively nurtured and improved by taking one simple step: permitting same sex marriage. Reuters reported on the research, which was part of the biannual European Social Survey. But the two Hungarian sociologists who carried out the study also found a dark side to their results. In countries that have not legalized or otherwise made same sex marriages permissible—countries such as Russia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine—prejudice against LGBTQ people is getting worse. "It's a very serious message that you can learn to be open-minded, and you can learn to be intolerant," one of the study’s authors, Judit Takács of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, told Reuters. “I think it is very important that we can unlearn prejudice.” According to Pew Research data, 16 European countries have legalized same sex marriage—including the United Kingdom and Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Spain and Sweden—while 21 countries, plus Vatican City, still ban same sex unions of any kind. Most of the countries that do not recognize any form of same sex unions are located in Eastern Europe, including Russia, Serbia, Poland, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine. Another 12 countries legally recognize same sex partnerships or civil unions, but have not yet allowed same sex couples to legally marry. Hungary, where the study was conducted is one of those countries—as is Northern Ireland, despite the rest of the U.K. and Ireland already having legalized same sex marriages. Europe’s—and the world’s—first country to legally recognize same sex marriage was the Netherlands, in 2001. In January of this year, Austria became the latest country to liberalize marriage laws to include same-sex couples legal recognition as married. The survey asked respondents to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 how strongly they agreed with the statement, “gay men and lesbians should be free to live their own life as they wish.” Russians rated themselves as the most intolerant, with an average score of 2. Belgium, Spain, Norway, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Iceland — all of which have legal same sex marriage — registered the highest agreement scores, while Spain and Portugal were among the countries showing the highest rates of increase in agreement with the statement. Spain legalized same sex marriage in 2004, and Portugal followed in 2010, according to Pew. The study’s authors concluded that legislation, and the public positions of political leaders, play a powerful role in reducing — or increasing — anti-LGBTQ bigotry. “It highlights the role of the state. It’s a great responsibility of our politicians how they lead us, and what kind of messages they sponsor,” Takács told Reuters. Photo By arthwollipot / Wikimedia Commons