Transcript for:
Global Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage

On the 22nd of May, Ireland decides on same-sex marriage. The first country in the world to put this to a national vote. Ireland has moved fast on gay rights, until 1993, homosexual acts were illegal here. And it's part of a global movement. The world's first gay marriage was in the Netherlands in 2001. And now same-sex marriage is legal in 18 countries.

Even the head of the Catholic Church, which traditionally opposed homosexuality, seems to be changing. Recently, the Pope said, Gay Catholics. Who am I to judge? But the movement towards equal rights for gay people is not a simple one. In 1996, South Africa's constitution was the first to protect sexual orientation as a human right.

But that equality may only be on paper. And human rights groups say violent attacks against the LGBT community in South Africa are on the increase. Presidents of Nigeria and Uganda recently passed new anti-gay laws.

In India, Homosexuality was decriminalised in 2009, but four years later the Supreme Court made it a crime again. That didn't stop Padma Iyer, who put the first marriage ad in an Indian newspaper this week for a groom for her gay son, Harish. In some countries, anti-gay is becoming equal to anti-Western values.

Like Russia. In 2012, it banned gay pride parades for 100 years and later passed a law making it difficult for gay rights groups to operate. Homosexuality is still a crime in 77 countries around the world and it carries the death penalty in seven.

And even the US has an ambiguous attitude to same-sex marriage. California passed it in 2008, but in a referendum voted against. That vote was later overturned.

And same-sex marriage is still only legal in some states. So, is the world divided in two on gay rights?