St Lucia makes being gay LEGAL….. BUT there are 67 countries around the world where it is still illegal

Saint Lucia is a beautiful Eastern Caribbean island nation with a pair of dramatically tapered mountains, the Pitons, on its west coast. Its coast is home to volcanic beaches, reef-diving sites, luxury resorts, and fishing villages. Trails in the interior rainforest lead to waterfalls like the 15m-high Toraille, which pours over a cliff into a garden. It also has a long history of France and the UK fighting over its ownership.  Then eventually, in 1967  it became an associated state of the United Kingdom and then gained full independence on February 22, 1979.

When the British Empire was at its peak in 1920 it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi),24 per cent of the Earth’s total land area. As such, it imposed a British constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy regardless of each of the countries’ traditions and values.  One of the most draconian measures the  British left in their wake were laws that made homosexuality illegal.  Very slowly, one by one, these former Empire countries are correcting these by repealing the laws : Canada in 1969, Australia  in 1997, India in 2028, South Africa in 1998 and now this month we can add St Lucia to that list.

ON July 29, 2025, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court struck down colonial-era laws against buggery and gross indecency as unconstitutional, which is big step forward as a few years back Saint Lucia was the only UN member in the Americas to formally oppose the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity.

There  are still 67 countries in the World where homosexuality is still illegal : the bulk of which are in Africa and the Middle East and ARE generally former members of the British Empire   

In 12 of these countries, the death penalty is either enforced or remains a possibility for private, consensual same-sex sexual activity.