The Global Clash of Civilizations on Homosexuality and the Threat of Hate Crimes Against LGBTQ+ Communities as Documented by International Organizations and NGOs

Abstract

This chapter documents some of the analyses of the perspectives of LGBTQ+ people around the world by national governments, bureaucracies, international organisations and NGOs we highlight among others the analysis of the European Union's Fundamental Rights Agency, which has spoken out against discrimination against the LGBTQ plus community, and which states in its 2020 report analysed in detail in our chapter, that more lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people are now open about who they are, but that they are afraid and face violence and discrimination. We also highlight Europol 2023 report that terrorist and violent extremist groups and individuals continue to use platforms for recruitment purposes and to disseminate propaganda against the community. Our chapter also analyses the data contained in the OSCE's 2023 report on discrimination and hate crimes in the OSCE region. Our new statistical analysis of the data provided by the OSCE shows that 300 of the 600 hate crimes against the community were committed in Orthodox Christian majority OSCE member states, i.e. in descending order of the absolute number of crimes—in the Russian Federation, Armenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Serbia, Greece, Belarus, Cyprus, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania. We draw our readers' attention to the data provided by EQUALDEX, an important think tank working in this field, and also provide an overview of the recent Austrian study published by the Austrian Security Research Programme KIRAS. In the second part of our chapter, we briefly analyse the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches and we highlight homophobia in the Muslim world.