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'''LGBT rights opposition''' refers to various movements opposing [[gay rights movement]].

Such opposition can be motivated by religious belief, political ideology, [[homophobia]], or other factors.

The rights and privileges that are opposed include the legalization of homosexual acts, government recognition of homosexual [[civil unions|civil unions or partnerships]], [[adoption]] by same-sex couples, access to [[assisted reproductive technology]] and access to [[sex reassignment surgery]].

== History ==
[[File:Bucherverbrennung-book-burning-Nazi-1933-Institute.jpg|left|thumb|Students organised by the [[Nazi]] party parade in front of the [[Institute for Sexual Research]] in Berlin on May 6, 1933, before pillaging it and confiscating its books and photos for burning.]]

The first organized [[gay rights movement]] arose in the late nineteenth century in Germany.<ref name=chron>[http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/CHR06.HTM Archive for Sexology]</ref>

The Russian Communist [[Inessa Armand]] openly called for [[feminism]] and [[sexual liberation]]. The Russian Communist Party effectively legalized no-fault divorce, abortion and homosexuality, when they abolished all the old Tsarist laws and the initial Soviet criminal code kept these liberal sexual polices in place.<ref>Hazard, John N. "Unity and Diversity in Socialist Law".</ref>

The Soviet Union sent delegates were the German [[Institute for Sexual Science]], and to some international conferences on human sexuality, who expressed support for the legalization of adult, private and consensual homosexual relations.

In the 1920s and into the early 1930s, there were gay communities in cities like Berlin; sexologist [[Magnus Hirschfeld]] was one of the most notable spokespeople for gay rights at this time. When the Nazi party came to power in 1933, one of the party's first acts was to burn down Hirschfeld's [[Institut für Sexualwissenschaft]], where many prominent Nazis had been treated for sexual problems.<ref name="Lenz">"not ten percent of those men who, in 1933, took the fate of Germany into their hands, were sexually normal" LUDWIG L. LENZ, The Memoirs of a Sexologist (New York: 1954) pp. 429, cited by Erwin Haeberle in "Swastika, Pink Triangle, and Yellow Star – The Destruction of Sexology and the Persecution of Homosexuals in Nazi Germany" The Journal of Sex Research, vol. 17, no. 3 (August 1981), pp. 270–287, http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/SWAST.HTM#A7</ref>  Initially tolerant to the homosexuality of [[Ernst Rohm]] and his followers, homosexuals were purged from the Nazi Party following the [[Night of the Long Knives]], the Section 175 Laws began to be enforced again, with [[homosexuals]] interned in concentration camps by 1938 (see [[History of gays in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust]]).

Under National Socialism in Germany, the dismantling of homosexual rights was approached in two ways. By strengthening and re-enforcing existing laws that had fallen into disuse, it was effectively re-criminalised; homosexuality was treated as a medical disorder, but at a social level rather than individual level intended to reduce the incidence of homosexuality. The treatment was a program of negative eugenics, starting with sterilisation, then a system of working people to death in forced labour camps, and eventually refined by medical scientists to include euthenasia. The driving force was the elimination of degeneracy at various levels – genetic, social, identity and practice, and the elimination of such genetic material in society. Lifton wrote about this in his book ''The Nazi Doctors'':<ref name ="LIFTON">{{Cite document
  | last = Lifton
  | first = Robert
  | title = The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide
  | publisher = Basic Books
  | year = 1986
  | postscript = <!--None-->
}}</ref>

<blockquote>
“The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life” (Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens) was published in 1920 and written jointly by two distinguished German professors: the jurist Karl Binding, retired after forty years at the University of Leipzig, and Alfred Hoche, professor of psychiatry at the University of Freiburg. Carefully argued in the numbered-paragraph form of the traditional philosophical treatise, the book included as “unworthy life” not only the incurably ill but large segments of the mentally ill, the feebleminded, and retarded and deformed children. More than that, the authors professionalized and medicalized the entire concept.  And they stressed the therapeutic goal of that concept: destroying life unworthy of life is “purely a healing treatment” and a “healing work".<ref>[http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/LiftonT046.shtml Lifton' Nazi Doctors p.46]</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>[...] sexology and defense of homosexuality [...] were aspects of “sexual degeneration, a breakdown of the family and loss of all that is decent,” and ultimately the destruction of the German Volk. [...] medicine was to join in the great national healing mission, and the advance image of what Nazi doctors were actually to become: the healer turned killer. [...] Sterilization policies were always associated with the therapeutic and regenerative principles of the biomedical vision: with the “purification of the national body” and the "eradication of morbid hereditary dispositions.” Sterilization was considered part of “negative eugenics” [...]<ref>[http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/LiftonT042.shtml Lifton' Nazi Doctors p.42]</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>[...] the T4 program, with its focus on adult chronic patients, involved virtually the entire German psychiatric community and related portions of the general medical community. [introduced in 1939]<ref>[http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/LiftonT065.shtml Lifton' Nazi Doctors p.65]</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>[...] brutality was replaced by a policy of impersonal, systematic terror. [...] policies under Eicke grew into what Rudolf Höss, who trained at Dachau for his post as commandant of Auschwitz, later called a “cult of severity” and a “Dachau spirit” according to which all inmates were enemies of the state; [...] During the middle and late 1935 categories of camp inmates were extended to include people considered “habitual criminals”; “antisocial elements”[...]; '''homosexuals'''; Jehovah’s Witnesses[...]; and [especially from 1938...] Jews. [...] The legal and social theory of the camps, as articulated in 1936, had a distinctly biological and therapeutic hue. Werner Best, Himmler's legal authority, identified the "political principle of totalitarianism" with the "ideological principle of the organically indivisible national community," and declared that "any attempt to gain recognition for or even to uphold different political ideas will be ruthlessly dealt with, as the symptom of an illness which threatens the healthy unity of the indivisible national organism, regardless of the subjective wishes of its supporters."  Thus, the disease-cure imagery was extended to the concentration camps — a still larger reversal of healing and killing".<ref>[http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/LiftonT153.shtml Lifton' Nazi Doctors p.153]</ref></blockquote>

It is argued that the numbers of homosexuals eliminated was quite low, and confined to Germany itself, based on estimates that of 50,000 homosexuals who came before the courts, between 5,000 and 15,000 <ref>http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hsx/</ref><ref>http://www.holocaust-trc.org/homosx.htm</ref><ref>http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/fivmil.htm</ref> ended up in concentration camps. However, many of those who came before the courts were directed (or volunteered) to undergo sterilisation/castration; they would be included with others who, in line with the historic shift in German society (that started with [[Westphal]], and developed through [[Krafft-Ebing]] to [[Magnus Hirschfeld]], of homosexuality being seen as having a neurological, endocrinological and/or genetic basis), were treated for homosexuality as a medical rather than criminal matter. Those treated by psychiatrists and thereby included in the T4 project to eliminate people with medical disorders would not be reflected in the rates of those dealt with as criminals.

After the [[Second World War]], campaigns for gay rights began to develop{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}, initially in the UK, Europe and North America. Towards the end of the 1960s homosexuality began to be decriminalised and demedicalised in countries such as the UK, New Zealand, Australia, North America and Western Europe, in the context of the [[sexual revolution]] and [[anti-psychiatry]] movements. Organized opposition to gay and lesbian rights began in the 1970s,{{Citation needed|date=May 2009}}, primarily amongst Christian groups, following the liberalization of attitudes and laws relating to homosexuality in many English-speaking countries and Western Europe.

==Public opinion==
{{Main|Societal attitudes toward homosexuality}}
Societal attitudes towards homosexuality vary greatly in different cultures and different historical periods, as do attitudes toward sexual desire, activity and relationships in general. All cultures have their own [[Sexual norm|values regarding appropriate and inappropriate sexuality]]; some sanction same-sex love and sexuality, while others disapprove of such activities.<ref>Murray, Stephen O., ''Homosexualities'', University of Chicago 2000</ref>  Classical civilisations, such as those focused on the city states of [[Ancient Greece]] and the [[Roman Empire]] tended to regard same-sex relationships in the form of [[pederasty]] as normal and unproblematic<ref name = "HOMOCLASS">{{Cite document
  | last = Hubbard
  | first = Thomas
  | title = Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: a sourcebook of basic documents in translation
  | publisher = university of California Press
  | year = 2003
  | postscript = <!--None-->
}}</ref>, though this practice more closely resembles [[pedophilia]] than it does adult same sex relations.

According to The 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Project, "Throughout [[Western Europe]] and much of the [[Americas]], there is widespread tolerance towards homosexuality. However, the [[United States]], [[Japan]], [[South Korea]], and [[Israel]] stand apart from other wealthy nations on this issue; in each of these countries, fewer than half of those surveyed say homosexuality should be accepted by society. Meanwhile, in most of [[Africa]], [[Asia]] and the [[Middle East]], there is less tolerance toward homosexuality." <ref>http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/258.pdf</ref>

== Fascist and far-right opposition ==
[[File:National_Front_at_London_Gay_Pride_2007.jpg|180px|thumb|National Front protesting same-sex marriage at London Gay Pride 2007]]
[[Fascist]] political parties have been universal in their opposition to gay rights{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}, despite parties such as the UK's [[British National Front|National Front]] appearing to have had leaders who engaged in homoerotic practices (see [[Martin Webster]]). Today, [[Neo Nazi]] organizations oppose gay rights, and may advocate life sentences in prison or concentration camps for homosexuals, or even the [[death penalty]]<ref>[http://www.mediamouse.org/resources/right.php?orgId=3 The Michigan-based '''National Socialist Movement']</ref> (which was instituted by the original [[Nazi]]s in 1942<ref>[http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=328 Southern Poverty Law Center]</ref>). The [[British National Party]] has shifted its platform from recriminalization to an extension of [[section 28]]-style legislation, i.e. making it illegal to portray homosexuality positively in the media.<ref>[http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,783675,00.html ''The Observer'']</ref>  In 1999, the [[Admiral Duncan pub]], a gay bar in London's Soho, was targeted up as part of a terrorist campaign by a [[National Socialist Movement (United Kingdom)|National Socialist Movement]] member, [[David Copeland]]; three people were killed, and 70 maimed or injured by a nail bomb detonated in the pub.<ref name = DUNCAN>{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/30/newsid_2499000/2499249.stm | work=BBC News | title=1999: Dozens injured in Soho nail bomb | date=April 30, 1999 | accessdate=May 7, 2010}}</ref> In the Netherlands, most far-right people support gay rights in every way.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}

== Health ==
{{See also|LGBT issues in medicine}}

A systematic review of research in the UK indicates that there appears to be limited evidence available from which to draw general conclusions about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health because epidemiological studies have not incorporated sexuality as a factor in data collection.<ref name = WMID>{{Cite document | last1= Meads | first1= C
 | last2= Pennant | first2= M
 | last3= McManus | first3= J
 | last4= Bayliss | first4= S
 | title=  A systematic review of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health in the West Midlands region of the UK compared to published UK research
 | publisher=  Unit of Public Health, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, West Midlands Health Technology Assessment Group
 | year= 2009 | postscript= <!--None-->}}</ref>  The review found that from the research there is in the UK, there are no differences in terms of major health problems between LGBT people and the general population, although LGBT people's general health appears poorer, but with no specific information on common and major diseases, cancers or long-term health.<ref name = WMID/>  Research points to issues encountered from an early age, such as LGBT people being targeted for bullying, assault, and discrimination, as contributing significantly to depression, suicide and other mental health issues in adulthood.<ref>[http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/185/6/479 Rates and predictors of mental illness in gay men, lesbians and bisexual men and women], [[British Journal of Psychiatry]], (2004) 185: 479–485</ref>  One researcher looked at the long-term consequences of bullying at schools,<ref name = RIVERS1>{{Cite journal | last1= Rivers | first1= I
 | title=  The bullying of sexual minorities at school: Its nature and long-term correlates.
 | journal=  Educational and Child Psychology
 | pages = 32–46
 | year= 2001
 | issue = 18(1) | postscript= <!--None-->}}</ref><ref name = RIVERS2>{{Cite journal | last1= Rivers | first1= I
 | title=  Recollections of Bullying at School and Their Long-Term Implications for Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals
 | journal=  Crisis
 | pages = 169–175
 | year= 2004
 | issue = 25(4) | postscript= <!--None-->}}</ref> and a social researcher has focused on the way LGBT people can experience discriminatory practices in accessing healthcare, and its effects.<ref name = WILT1>{{Cite document
 | last = Wilton
 | first = Tamsin
 | title = Sexualities in health and social care: a textbook
 | publisher = Open University Press
 | year = 2000
 | isbn = 0335200265
 | postscript = <!--None-->}}</ref>

Some LGBT activists argue that the experience of growing up LGBT contributes to mental health issues in adulthood, and the barriers to accessing appropriate healthcare as adults contribute towards poorer health; they argue that protection of LGBT rights is necessary to minimise the potential development of health problems and ensure access to healthcare resources. In 2009 Canadian LGBT activists filed a complaint alleging that the health issues of GLB Canadians are being neglected by the government, equating it to a violation of the human rights of LGBT people. In the complaint, the activists highlight a life expectancy 20 years less than average for LGB people, with more cases of cancer and HIV and increased rates of suicide, alcoholism and drug use.<ref>http://www.xtra.ca/BinaryContent/pdf/human%20rights%20complaint.pdf Human Rights complaint against the Canadian government by LGBT activists</ref>  Pundits such as writer and editor Terry O'Neill reject the idea that homophobia caused all the additional GLB health problems in Canada, and derides what he calls "the victim-group mentality, the lack of personal responsibility and the all-too-predictable blaming of others for one's problems".<ref>[http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/05/04/terry-o-neill-a-new-wing-for-canada-s-human-rights-neverland.aspx Terry O'Neill: A new wing for Canada's human rights Neverland], [[National Post]], 4 May 2009</ref>

== Religious reasons ==
{{Main|Religion and homosexuality}}
Many forms of Abrahamic religions, including [[Evangelicalism|evangelical Christianity]],<ref>Strauss, Lehman, Litt.D., F.R.G.S. [http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1302 "Homosexuality: The Christian Perspective"].</ref> [[Catholicism]],<ref>[http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_rom.htm "Roman Catholics and Homosexuality"], Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (2006)</ref> [[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints|Mormonism]],<ref>[http://www.lds.org/hf/library/0,16866,4266-1,00.html?LibraryURL=/lds/hf/display "Teaching about Procreation and Chastity: Homosexuality"], The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints. Home & Family.</ref>
[[Orthodox Judaism]],<ref>Shafran, Rabbi Avi. [http://www.jlaw.com/Commentary/maritalprob.html "Jewish Law: Marital Problems"]. Jewish Law Commentary: Examining Halacha, Jewish Issues, and Secular Law.</ref>
and [[Islam]],<ref>[http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_isla1.htm "Islam and Homosexuality"], Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (2005).</ref> hold the view that gay sex is a [[sin]] and that its practice and acceptance in society weakens moral standards and undermines the family.

===Christian views and opposition to homosexuality===
{{Main|Homosexuality and Christianity|List of Christian denominational positions on homosexuality|The Bible and homosexuality}}

====Christian mainstream opposition====
Orthodox, Roman Catholic and conservative Evangelicals within the Anglican and Baptist churches are opposed to people of the same sex having sex together, having committed partnerships, raising children, etc.; they oppose people changing sex as well.{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}

====Christian mainstream support====
In Europe some [[Lutheran]], [[Reformed]] and [[United]] churches in [[Germany]] ([[EKD]]), [[Switzerland]], the [[Netherlands]] ([[Protestant Church of the Netherlands]]), [[Belgium]], [[Denmark]] ([[Church of Denmark]]) and [[Sweden]] ([[Church of Sweden]]) are supportive of gay rights and bless civil unions. In recent years, in the [[United States]], [[Canada]], and [[England]], Anglican churches have begun to support gay, lesbian and transgender people; the Episcopal Church in the USA has one openly gay bishop, [[Gene Robinson]], in a committed long-term partnership, as well as clergy. The [[Episcopal Church in the United States of America|Episcopal Church]] and [[Presbyterian Church (USA)]] bless civil unions but do not "marry" their congregants. Some Methodist churches take a similar position,<ref name = METH>{{cite web | url= http://www.methodist.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=opentogod.content&cmid=1547 | title= Methodist factsheet on homosexuality}}</ref> as well as Accepting Evangelicals.<ref name = ACEVO>{{cite web | url= http://www.acceptingevangelicals.org/ | title= Accepting Evangelicals' position on homosexuality}}</ref>

====Christian sectarian support ====
[[Liberal Christian]] churches are often supportive of gay rights. The leadership and many congregations within the [[United Church of Christ]] have supported the right for same-sex couples to marry.<ref>{{PDFlink| [http://www.ucc.org/synod/resolutions/gsrev25-7.pdf In Support of Equal Marriage Rights for All]|34.2&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 35074 bytes -->}}, United Church of Christ (2005). Resolution by General Synod 25 in Atlanta.</ref>  The [[Metropolitan Community Church]] was formed to accommodate LGBT Christians who felt excluded from mainstream churches because of their sexual or gender identities. The [[Religious Society of Friends]] is generally supportive of LGBT rights, for example, the [[United Kingdom|British]] chapter plans to lobby [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]] to allow them to perform same-sex marriages.<ref>{{cite news |title=Quakers agree to hold gay marriages |last=Geen |first=Jessica |date=July 31, 2009 |newspaper=Pink News |accessdate=2009-10-31 |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-13507.html}}</ref>

===Islamic opposition===
{{Vedi anche|LGBT topics and Islam}}
[[Homosexuality]] is a crime and forbidden in most [[Islam]]ic countries according to [[Sharia law]]. All major Islamic sects disapprove of homosexuality.{{Citation needed|date=February 2009}} Islam views same-sex desires as opposing natural temptation, and views homosexual sexual relations as a transgression of the natural role and aim of sexual activity.{{Citation needed|date=February 2009}}

Same-sex intercourse officially carries the [[death penalty]] in [[Saudi Arabia]], [[Iran]], [[Mauritania]], [[Nigeria]], [[Sudan]] and [[Yemen]].<ref>[http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileID=1111&ZoneID=7&FileCategory=50 ILGA:7 countries still put people to death for same-sex acts]</ref><ref>[http://www.religionfacts.com/homosexuality/islam.htm Homosexuality and Islam – ReligionFacts<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
It formerly carried the death penalty in [[Afghanistan]] under the [[Taliban]]. The legal situation in the [[United Arab Emirates]] is unclear. In other nations, such as [[Bahrain]], [[Qatar]], [[Algeria]] and the [[Maldives]], homosexuality is punished with jail time, fines, or corporal punishment. In some Muslim-majority nations, such as [[Turkey]], [[Jordan]], [[Indonesia]] or [[Mali]], same-sex intercourse is not specifically forbidden by law. In [[Egypt]], openly gay men have been prosecuted under general public morality laws. ''See: [[Cairo 52]].''

On the other hand, homosexuality, while not legal, is tolerated to some extent in [[Lebanon]], and has been legal in Turkey for decades. In Oman, the [[Xanith]] are men who occupy a role in society which allows them to have sex with men provided they act in the 'female role' and receive the phallus.<ref name = XANITH>{{Cite document
 | last = Nanda
 | first = Serena
 | title = Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India
 | publisher = Wadsworth Publishing
 | year = 1998
 | pages = 130–131
 | postscript = <!--None-->
}}</ref> It is not uncommon to see the one who penetrates as maintaining his heterosexual status, while the one who is penetrated as the 'offender'.

In Saudi Arabia, the maximum punishment for homosexuality is public execution, but the government will use other punishments – e.g., fines, jail time, and [[whipping]] – as alternatives, unless it feels that homosexuals are challenging state authority by engaging in [[LGBT social movements]].<ref>[http://www.sodomylaws.org/world/saudi_arabia/saudinews19.htm Is Beheading Really the Punishment for Homosexuality in Saudi Arabia?<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Iran is perhaps the nation to execute the largest number of its citizens for homosexuality. Since the 1979 [[Iranian Revolution|Islamic revolution]] in Iran, the Iranian government has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual acts.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/homosexuality.html#Islam |title=Homosexuality and Religion}}</ref> In Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, homosexuality went from a capital crime to one that it punished with fines and prison sentence.

Most international human rights organizations, such as [[Human Rights Watch]] and [[Amnesty International]], condemn laws that make homosexual relations between consenting adults a crime. Muslim nations insist that such laws are necessary to preserve Islamic morality and virtue. Of the nations with a majority of Muslim inhabitants, only Lebanon has an internal effort to legalize homosexuality.<ref>[http://www.helem.net/ Helem<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

{{See also|Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni}}


== See also ==

* [[Culture war]]
* [[Gay agenda]]
* [[Heteronormativity]]
* [[Heterosexism]]
* [[Homophobia]]
* [[Homophobic propaganda]]
* [[Homosexuality and religion]]
* [[Homosexual recruitment]]
* [[LGBT social movements]]
* [[LGBT retirement issues]]
* [[List of US ballot initiatives to repeal LGBT anti-discrimination laws]]
* [[Opponents of same-sex marriage in the United States]]
* [[Violence against LGBT people]]
* [[Westboro Baptist Church]]

== References ==
{{References|2}}

{{Portale|LGBT}}
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