During the past year, the world has witnessed slow progress toward full recognition of the human rights of LGBTQ people, though many nations remain obstinate in their homophobic belief that all queer people are morally corrupt criminals. At the start of the year, 72 countries had laws punishing same-sex intimacy, including the tiny Pacific nation of Niue, previously overlooked. By year’s end, that number had dropped to 68. In July, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court ruled that anti-homosexuality sections of Antigua’s Sexual Offences Act were unconstitutional. In August, the same court struck down laws criminalizing same-sex intercourse in the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis.