Seychelles Decriminalizes Homosexuality

The Atlantic reports:

Same-sex acts are no longer illegal in the Republic of Seychelles, the 115-island country off the East African coast, making it one of the few African countries to decriminalize the acts.

Fourteen lawmakers voted Wednesday in favor of the proposal to amend Section 151 of the country’s Penal Code that named sodomy a felony, punishable with up to 14 years in prison. Fourteen others abstained; four were absent.

The amendment comes three months after President James Michel’s national address in which he said his government would introduce a bill to abolish Section 151. Michel called the law a colonial remnant and an “aberration” in Seychelles’s “tolerant” society. He reminded the nation of Seychelles’s 2011 agreement with the UN Humans Rights Council to decriminalize homosexuality.

Interestingly, Seychelles banned employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in 2006. The vast majority of Seychelles’ 92K residents are Christian.