EU gay asylum ruling gets divided reception

[YahooNews]

Gays can seek asylum in the European Union when threatened with jail for same-intercourse activity, but only when such persecution is "sufficiently serious", Europe's top court ruled on Thursday. The judgement by the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice was seen as divisive, with rights groups differing widely in their reading of what this could mean in practice. The court found that jail terms for homointercourseual behaviour could be considered "an act of persecution" warranting asylum. But it said the threat of persecution must be enforced and "sufficiently serious" with courts in home countries regularly throwing people behind bars.