The Five Worst World Leaders on LGBT Rights

A parade of world leaders traveled through the United Nations this week, with some of them (hello, Libya!) calling attention to the fact that around the world, there are some pretty bad leaders when it comes to the subject of LGBT rights. Below is our hit parade of crazy, covering the five worst leaders when it comes to LGBT rights.

Muammar Qaddafi (Libya)
When he's not giving 96-minute screeds in front of the entire United Nations, suggesting that Barack Obama become U.S. President for life or that the UN should relocate its headquarters to Libya, Qaddafi helms an administration that ain't too proud to trash LGBT rights. That climate was fostered all too succinctly earlier this week when the Libyan secretary of African Union Affairs took over the presidency of the UN General Assembly and used it as an occasion to dis homosexuality. "[Homosexuality] is not acceptable in the majority of the world. And there are some countries that allow that, thinking it is a kind of democracy...I think it is not," said the secretary. Yuck. So now homosexuality is undemocratic, too?

Yahya Jammeh
He's the President of The Gambia, and last year he threatened to behead every LGBT person in his country. He also said that any hotel or restaurant that caters to LGBT people would be in trouble with the law, too. And if you thought his tirades and hatred were so 2008, think again. Human rights groups are condemning him for...you guessed it, threatening to kill human rights activists. "If you think that you can collaborate with so-called human rights defenders and get away with it, you must be living in a dream world. I will kill you, and nothing will come out of it," said the fine President on state TV in Gambia. So gay people and human rights activists are on his list. What next, puppies?

Bruce Golding
As Prime Minister of Jamaica, Golding has gotten his anti-LGBT groove on many a time. He pledged not to hire any cabinet official who might be perceived to be gay, and he has proudly defended colonial-era laws that criminalize sodomy (thanks, Britain, for these wonderful gifts from the 19th century!). He's also at the helm of what might just be the most homophobic country in the entire Western Hemisphere, where LGBT people are routinely assaulted, tortured or killed. While there are excellent voices for to justice from within Jamaica, the continuing violence has caused a number of activists to boycott vacation to the country until Mr. Golding figures out how to run a place where LGBT folks don't have persecution.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
How could any list leave off Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He's said previously that homosexuality doesn't exist in his country, while at the same time heading an administration that executes people for being gay. Then he goes in front of the world and denies the Holocaust, where many LGBT lost their lives, and bashes democracies that recognize the rights of LGBT people. Not good, but then again, not entirely surprising coming from this unstable dude.

Pope Benedict XVI
OK, we feel a little guilty about this one, but if this is the company that the Vatican wants to keep, then it has to be prepared to deal with it. Pope Benedict XVI has made it one of his legacies to root out homosexuality from with the Catholic Church. That includes scouring seminaries to question priests about their sexual orientation, and now it includes investigating American convents to make sure they're toeing the line on holding to the Vatican's anti-gay beliefs. The Vatican also condemned a UN resolution calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality, has equated homosexuality to the scourge of climate change, and has now gotten mixed up in the debate over whether Democrats or pro-gay Republicans should be allowed to have Catholic funerals. This is not a Church that inspires spiritual well-being, but rather one that has increasingly marched to the fringes of the anti-LGBT world.

(Photo courtesy of kamshots' photostream on Flickr.)