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Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons living in Lebanon may face difficulties not experienced by non-LGBT residents. In 2014, a judge in the court of Jdeideh ruled in favor of invalidating the application of Article 534 of the Lebanese penal code to prosecute homosexual activities. Article 534, which prohibits having sexual relations that "contradict the laws of nature" was being used against homosexuals. The judge ruled that homosexuality is not against nature, thus rendering the prosecution of homosexuals under this article ineffective. A poll done by the Pew Research Center in 2007 showed that 79% of Lebanese believed "Homosexuality should be rejected", as opposed to 18% who believed "homosexuality should be accepted". But recently, there was an increase in the acceptance of LGBT people by the society. And that happened especially after the Lebanese National Center for Psychiatry declassified the non-heterosexual sexual orientations as mental disorders, and this was a first in an Arabic-speaking country. ==Laws on homosexuality== Article 534 of the Lebanese Penal Code prohibits having sexual relations that are "contradicting the laws of nature", which is punishable by up to a year in prison. As a practical matter, enforcement of the law is varied and often occurs through occasional police arrests. In 2002, the police broke into a woman's house after her mother claimed that her daughter had stolen some money and jewelry. Upon entering the house, the police found the woman having sexual relations with another woman and charged them both with the crime of sodomy. On 11 December 2009, the Lebanon-based LGBT organization Helem launched a report that would target the legal situation of homosexuals in the Middle East and North Africa. A Lebanese judge in Batroun ruled against the use of article 534 to prosecute homosexuals. In April 2013, the mayor of Dekwaneh, a suburb north of Beirut, ordered security forces to raid and shut-down a gay-friendly nightclub. Several club-goers were arrested and forced to undress in the municipal headquarters, where they were then photographed naked. This operation was condemned by numerous gay rights activists. Lebanon's interior minister of the interim government, Marwan Charbel, supported the mayor of Dekwaneh saying, ""Lebanon is opposed to homosexuality, and according to Lebanese law it is a criminal offense."〔("Lebanon: Homosexuals no longer 'perverts,' but still target", ''Ynetnews'', reported by Roi Kais, 16 May 2013 )〕 On 11 July 2013, the Lebanese Psychiatric Society (LPS) released a statement saying that homosexuality is not a mental disorder and does not need to be treated, they said: "Homosexuality in itself does not cause any defect in judgment, stability, reliability or social and professional abilities", "The assumption that homosexuality is a result of disturbances in the family dynamic or unbalanced psychological development is based on wrong information". Also, LPS ruled that "conversion therapy", seeking to "convert" gays into straights has no scientific background and asked health professionals to "rely only on science" when giving opinion and treatment in this matter. And that makes Lebanon the first Arab country to declassify homosexuality as a "disease".〔http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dan-littauer/gay-treatment-lebanon_b_3585192.html〕 On 28 January 2014 a Lebanese judge of Jdeideh court, Beirut, ruled out a case against an intersex-born self-identified woman accused of having "unnatural" sexual relationship with a man. The ruling rendered the article 534, which is historically used to prosecute same-sex relationships, inapplicable for the case.〔()〕 This law was banned in 2014. 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 Lebanon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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