Nepal to celebrate becoming first Asian nation to recognise gay marriages with same-sex unions on Mount Everest | Mail Online

Nepal to celebrate becoming first Asian nation to recognise gay marriages with same-sex unions on Mount Everest | Mail Online

Nepal is set to become the first Asian nation to allow same-sex marriages.

The country, which as recently as 2007 classified homosexuality as a crime, is even promoting gay weddings on Mount Everest in a bid to become the continent's premier gay tourism destination.

The government hopes its plans will help attract one million tourists next year, more than double the number that travelled to Nepal in 2009.
Mount Everest

Change: Nepal is promoting gay weddings on Mount Everest in a bid to become the continent's premier gay tourism destination

Sharat Singh Bhandari, Nepal's tourism minister, also hopes to hold elephant safaris for homosexual honeymooners.

'We’re completely changing this country,' he told The Times 'It’s a newborn republic - and we want to showcase this change.

'We also want to re-establish tourism as a major industry.'

In an unprecedented move, Mr Bhandari wrote a letter to the International Conference On Gay and Lesbian Tourism in Boston last October.

He wrote: 'As the world knows, Nepal is the land of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak and the birth place of Lord Buddha, light of Asia.

'I, therefore, would like to take this opportunity to invite and welcome all the sexual and gender minorities from around the world.'

The country will also host the first Asian Symposium On Gay and Lesbian Tourism in Kathmandu in June.

A Supreme Court ruling in 2008 ordered the Nepalese government to protect the rights of 'sexual minorities'. A gay marriage law is currently working its way through parliament.

The swift pace of change in Nepal was kickstarted in 2006 when a democratic uprising forced King Gyanendra to renounce absolute power. Two years later the Maoists controlled the country and abolished the last Huindu monarchy.

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