Switzerland has voted in a referendum to approve a law that would extend anti-racism legislation to cover sexual orientation, defying critics who had claimed such a move would be an infringement of free speech.

Unlike many of its western European neighbours, Switzerland doesn’t have a law that specifically protects LGBTQ+ people from discrimination or hate speech.

A new law, passed by the country’s government in December 2018, was designed to close this loophole. However, an alliance of right-wing parties including the conservative Christian Federal Democratic Union (EDU) and the nationalist Swiss People’s Party (SVP), opposed the law change and sought a referendum to stop it from coming into effect.

On flyers and on posters, opponents framed the law as a “gagging clause” that restricts freedom of speech and demotes homosexual and bisexual members of society to a “weak minority in need of protection”.

Switzerland has a long tradition of holding plebiscites on issues that can range from major foreign policy decisions to the building of a new school, which are usually held on three to four dates spread across the year.

Members of the Yes campaign cheer after initial results showed Switzerland voted to make discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or identity punishable by law. Photograph: Peter Klaunzer/EPA

Revealed splits

In Sunday’s vote, 63.1 per cent of the Swiss public voted in favour of expanding the current anti-discrimination law, though the result also revealed splits across the linguistically and cultural heterogeneous state: in the German-speaking cantons of Schwyz, Uri and Appenzell-Innerrhoden, there were majorities in favour of blocking the law. In French-speaking Vaud, by contrast, the law was endorsed by an emphatic 80 per cent of the voting public.

Under the new law, those who “publicly degrade or discriminate” others on the basis of their sexual orientation, for example by denying same-sex couples entry to a nightclub, can face a jail sentence of up to three years.

The law does not affect private conversations, such as among friends or family.

Several European countries, including Ireland, already have similar legislation in place. – Guardian