The minor criminal law reform
In 1971 Austria lifts its total ban on homosexuality, but new laws continue to discriminate.
On 2 August 1971, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1971, known in retrospect as the "minor criminal law reform", is promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette of the Republic of Austria. This puts into legal effect what the National Council had decided three weeks earlier, on 8 July 1971: the end of the total ban on same-sex acts that had been in force since 1852 (§129 Ib of the Criminal Code). Unlike in most European countries, this ban had covered not only men but explicitly women too.
The driving force behind the reform is Justice Minister Christian Broda (SPÖ), who steers it through Bruno Kreisky's minority government. For years before that, the ÖVP, supported by the Catholic Church, had resisted any relaxation. Bishops warned that decriminalisation could make homosexuality "fashionable".
Yet the progress remains half-hearted: at the same time, the law introduces four new special criminal provisions, which shortly afterwards are carried over into the new Criminal Code as §§209, 210, 220 and 221. §209 sets an age of consent of 18 for male homosexual acts, while 14 continues to apply to heterosexual and lesbian contact. §210 criminalises male prostitution, §220 bans "advertising lewdness with persons of the same sex", and §221 the founding of associations of that kind.
These special paragraphs continue to cost people their freedom: between 1971 and 2002 there are around 1,500 convictions. §210 is only abolished in 1989, §220 and §221 in 1997, and the discriminatory age of consent of §209 not until 2002. Even so, in 1971 Austria is one of the last Western European countries to abolish the total ban on homosexuality at all. The law comes into force 15 days after promulgation, on 17 August 1971.