The Global Battle over Gay Rights : Homosexuality and Human Rights in the International Arena

This unique and insightful book brilliantly analyzes the growing impact of homosexuality on international politics. Gay rights are one of the most divisive issues in the international arena and have become a proxy for larger debates about 'modernity' and globalisation, a fault line between liberal and authoritarian states.

While more than a dozen countries have legalized same-sex marriage, others are quick in decreeing the death penalty for homosexual behaviour. In this landmark book, pioneering gay rights activist and academic Dennis Altman maps the changes that have made homosexuality a matter of international contention and explains the social, political and cultural tides that have allowed homosexuality to be understood within a new framework of universal human rights.

While both homosexual affirmation and homophobia are being globalised and unlikely fundamentalist coalitions emerge in opposition to gay rights, Altman argues that homosexuality has become the most controversial test case of international norm diffusion there is.