I was told (by a very well educated muslim) that sharia law includes death penalty for sex with another man - however, there need to be four male witnesses present. Actually present. So if a US court would say "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" a sharia court might say "there were only three male and one female witness present". That kind of thing would make a huge practical difference.

Do you have a reason to doubt the accuracy of this source? This said, Somalia is only barely a functioning state at all (this itself being a recent development) and the rule of law there is fragile and weak.

@ohwilleke My original candid reason was precisely that which you just articulated: vague knowledge that Somalia has what has been called anarchy anyway so interest as to what extent it could even be true to in the first place.

@gnasher729, in undeveloped parts of the world, I assume it's not totally implausible that four people could muster and burst into a room suddenly, but clearly the bar is high and intended to cover only the most careless or flagrant (practically public) cases. I suspect these laws are intended to set a standard to regulate behaviour - the punishments themselves are not supposed to be usually applied, and are calibrated to ancient society.

the graph is outdated, the death penalty is now enforced as mandatory penalty for homosexualism and gender dysphoria in Uganda as well. And in many other countries it's probably not technically enforced but lynch mobs will kill you anyway if there's even a suspicion.

@Steve that’sa very interesting observation, because I have always gotten the feeling that such Islamic and Jewish evidentiary rules are (at least often portrayed as) in place to virtually nullify the proscription because the bar for conviction is set so impossibly high that the penalty may as well be moot anyway. I’ve often heard apologise for these religions cite these rules as arguments that these religions

@Steve should not really be seen as practically oppressive to gay folks anyway, like a rabbinic saying that a rabbinic court that convicted people of such offences once every X hundred years ought to have been considered an overly harsh and eager-to-convict one. Yet yours seems like a much more sensible reading.

@jwenting Uganda is easy enough to verify and I think I remember reading about something to that effect anyway, but [citation needed] as for the other stuff.

@jwenting, I suspect with lynch mobs, what you're seeing targeted are those who, for whatever reason, cannot avoid flaunting. Also, the cast of Top Gear were once chased by a pitchfork mob in Texas, USA, so potentially hardline responses to flaunting are not unique to any particular part of the world.

@Steve nope, witch hunts happen a lot. Often no evidence is needed, only accusation. Cheap way to get rid of people you don't like.

@Seekinganswers, all religions try to regulate sexual behaviour, moderate excesses, and thereby promote social harmony. Most see one of the primary adult responsibilities as being the raising of the next generation of children for example, and two family men who are supposedly very best friends, is a very different circumstance than an adult man who refuses to father children but spends his time soliciting other men (or indeed women). Even worse if you get someone like that in a position of power or authority - like recent cases with Dan Wooton or, perhaps, Huw Edwards or Philip Schofield.

@jwenting, such panics tend to occur in societies where communities are undergoing collapse for other reasons. You have to understand that in settled rural societies, most neighbours know each other somewhat, and don't just muster with pitchforks against each other at the drop of a hat, or kill each other on rumour. Religions are successful precisely because they helped govern and civilise communities that were larger than could self-govern peacefully without structures, officials, and learnedness.

@Steve can you give any reference to the top gear incident? I have never heard of it

@Seekinganswers it never happened. There were some angry people shouting at them when they drove through the US with anti-US slogans on their cars but that's it. In Argentina though, they were nearly lynched when someone interpreted one of their number plates (which they'd not chosen) as being a reference to the Argentine defeat in the Falklands war. The entire team had to flee the country because of that.

@Steve Salem with trials come to mind... Not exactly a "community undergoing collapse" yet they killed dozens of their own simply because they were "different" or for reasons of jealousy.

@jwenting can you give a more specific reference to the respective top gear incidents?

@jwenting and jealousy of what?