Editing Sodomy laws (section)

=== Early Modern Era ===

==== Persecution made by [[Henry VIII]] ====
[[File:Enrique VIII de Inglaterra, por Hans Holbein el Joven.jpg|left|thumb|224x224px|[[Henry VIII|King Henry VIII of England]], English king that persecuted homosexuals with the "Buggery Act 1533".]]
In the kingdom of England, [[Henry VIII|King Henry VIII of England]] introduced the first English criminal law against sodomy with the "Buggery Act 1533", thus making sodomy punishable by hanging.

==== The first decriminalization of homosexuality in the West ====
In 1786, Peter Leopold of Tuscany abolished the death penalty for all crimes. He became not only the first Western ruler to do so, but also the first ruler who abolished the death penalty for sodomy (a sentence replaced by that of prison and hard labor).

==== During the French Revolution ====
In France, it was the French Penal Code of 1791 that for the first time revised the concept of sodomy as a crime, together decriminalizing all so-called "victimless crimes" (together with witchcraft, heresy, blasphemy) according to the concept that if not had there been a victim there would have been no crime either. The same principle was held true also in the French Penal Code of 1810 wanted by [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] and which soon made its way onto a large part of the European continent then ruled by the first French Empire and its kings-in-law, thus decriminalizing sodomy in much of continental Europe.

==== In Poland ====
In 1795, following the partition of Poland, the sodomy laws of Russia, Prussia and Austria came into effect in the occupied Polish lands. Poland maintained these laws after independence in 1918, but they were never or hardly ever applied and were officially abolished in 1932.

==== In Brazil ====
In 1830 the emperor Peter I of Brazil signed a law immediately inserted in the imperial penal code. This removed all references to sodomy.

The death penalty was not abolished in England and Wales until 1861.

==== In Japan ====
In the Meiji period, sex between men was punishable under the sodomy laws announced in 1872 and revised in 1873. This has changed since the laws announced in 1880. Since then, more laws have been passed criminalizing homosexuality.