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Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights are widely diverse in Europe per country. Thirteen out of the nineteen countries that have legalised same-sex marriage are situated in Europe; a further thirteen European countries have legalised civil unions or other forms of recognition for same-sex couples. Austria, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Switzerland are considering legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage will be enacted in Finland by March 2017. Slovenia has planned a referendum to legalise same-sex marriage in December 2015. Malta is the only country in Europe that recognises legally performed same-sex marriages overseas but does not perform them. Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine have a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. == History == Although same-sex relationships were quite common (but never an equivalent to marriage between man and woman) in ancient Greece, Rome and pagan Celtic societies, after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, severe laws against homosexual behaviour appeared. An edict by the Emperor Theodosius I in 390 condemned all "passive" homosexual men to death by public burning. This was followed by the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' of Justinian I in 529, which prescribed public castration and execution for all who committed homosexual acts, both active and passive partners. Homosexual behaviour, called sodomy, was considered a capital crime in most European countries, and thousands of homosexual men were executed across Europe during waves of persecution in these centuries. Lesbians were less often singled out for punishment, but they also suffered persecution and execution from time to time.〔Crompton, Louis. (2003). ''Homosexuality & Civilization.'' Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. 1-212.〕 Since the foundation of Poland in 966, Polish law has never defined homosexuality as a crime.〔http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/poland.html%20%20〕〔http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/poland.html〕 Forty years after Poland lost its independence in 1795, the sodomy laws of Russia, Prussia, and Austria came into force in the partitioned Polish territory. Poland regained its independence in 1918 and abandoned the laws of the occupying powers. In 1932, Poland codified the equal age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals at 15. In Turkey, homosexuality has been legal since 1858.〔 During the French Revolution, the French National Assembly rewrote the criminal code in 1791, omitting all reference to homosexuality. During the Napoleonic wars, homosexuality was decriminalised in territories coming under French control, such as the Netherlands and many of the pre-unification German states, however in Germany this ended with the unification of the country under the Prussian Kaiser, as Prussia had long punished homosexuality harshly. On 6 August 1942, the Vichy government made homosexual relations with anyone under twenty-one illegal as part of its conservative agenda. Most Vichy legislation was repealed after the war– but the anti-gay Vichy law remained on the books for four decades until it was finally repealed in August 1982 when the age of consent (15) was again made the same for heterosexual as well as homosexual partners. Nevertheless, gay men and lesbians continued to live closeted lives, since moral and social disapproval by heterosexual society remained strong across Europe for another two decades, until the modern gay rights movement began in 1969. Various countries under dictatorships in the 20th century were very anti-homosexual, such as in the Soviet Union, in Nazi Germany and in Spain under Francisco Franco's regime. In contrast, after Poland regained independence after World War I, it went on in 1932 to become the first country in 20th-century Europe to decriminalise homosexual activity, followed by Denmark in 1933, Iceland in 1940, Switzerland in 1942 and Sweden in 1944. In 1962, homosexual behaviour was decriminalised in Czechoslovakia, following a scientific research of Kurt Freund that included phallometry of homosexually oriented men who appeared to have given up sexual relations with other men and established heterosexual marriages. Freund came to the conclusion that homosexual orientation may not be changed. In 1972, Sweden became the first country in the world to allow people who were transsexual by legislation to surgically change their sex and provide free hormone replacement therapy. In 1979, a number of people in Sweden called in sick with a case of ''being homosexual,'' in protest of homosexuality being classified as an illness. This was followed by an activist occupation of the main office of the ''National Board of Health and Welfare''. Within a few months, Sweden became the first country in Europe from those that had previously defined homosexuality as an illness to remove it as such.〔(Jag känner mig lite homosexuell idag | quistbergh.se ) The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973 with publication of its DSM II. Source: The American Psychiatric Association, and DSM II. Thus, the American Psychiatric Association took this step six years before a similar action was taken in Sweden. 〕 In 1989, Denmark was the first country in Europe, and the world, to introduce registered partnerships for same-sex couples. In 1991, Bulgaria was the first country in Europe to ban same-sex marriage. Since then, eleven countries have followed (Lithuania in 1992, Belarus and Moldova in 1994, Ukraine in 1996, Poland in 1997, Latvia and Serbia in 2006, Montenegro in 2007, Hungary in 2012, Croatia in 2013 and Slovakia in 2014).〔〔 In 2001 a next step was made, when the Netherlands opened civil marriage for same-sex couples, which made it the first country in the world to do so. Since then, eleven other European states have followed (Belgium in 2003, Spain in 2005, Norway and Sweden in 2009, Portugal and Iceland in 2010, Denmark in 2012, France in 2013, the United Kingdom in 2014 and Luxembourg and the Republic of Ireland in 2015). On 22 October 2009, the assembly of the Church of Sweden, voted strongly in favour of giving its blessing to homosexual couples, including the use of the term marriage, ("matrimony"). The new law was introduced on 1 November 2009. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「LGBT rights in Europe」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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