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In Haiti, More LGBT-friendly Penal Code Prompts Outcry from Pulpit

Sandra Lemaire

   WASHINGTON / PORT-AU-PRINCE - An overhaul of Haiti's penal code that
   punishes marriage officiants who refuse to perform same-sex weddings is
   provoking outcry among religious leaders in the socially conservative
   Caribbean nation.

   The tension is emerging in a nation that has never spelled out LGBT
   rights and same-sex unions have never been recognized and homosexuality
   has never been expressly codified as illegal.

   At the heart of the current discussion is the rewrite of the
   185-year-old penal code, [1]decreed by Haitian President Jovenel Moise
   last month. It voids the work of lawmakers who were drafting legal
   reforms before parliament recessed and the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in
   the country.

   Published in an official government newsletter on June 24, the reforms
   would go into effect in 2022 unless a new parliament rejects the
   document.
   Critics object to the sweeping changes issued by decree as well as the
   new penal code's treatment of sexual minorities that, on paper, would
   make Haitian tribunals among the most LGBT-friendly in the Caribbean, a
   region where sexual minorities have faced centuries of repression.
   Outcry from the pulpit

References

   1. https://www.voanews.com/americas/haitis-new-penal-code-under-fire

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