If You're a Sexual Minority, you have the Inside Track for Asylum in the U.S.

Luis Javier Tejada is an example of why, in many ways, there has never been a better time to be gay in Honduras.

Last year, the graphic artist rejoiced as two openly gay candidates ran for the Honduran National Congress, which had just passed a broad measure against hate speech based on "sexual orientation or gender identity." This spring he was looking forward to drawing a salary from a Dutch group supporting his work with HIV-positive Hondurans.

Luis Javier Tejada, 33, a graphic artist and HIV activist, 

said he is hoping to leave San Pedro Sula to seek asylum
in the U.S. .. Alicia Vera for The Wall Street Journal

But cultural change comes slowly. Neither gay candidate came close to winning—and one fled Honduras after reporting that a mob ransacked her offices and savagely beat her. Mr. Tejada's partner also fled. Both sought asylum in New York, where Mr. Tejada, 33 years old, hopes he will soon do the same.

Carlos Flores, 27, Mr. Tejada's partner, fled San 

Pedro Sula for New York last year and was granted
asylum .. Joel Millman/The Wall Street Journal

For that, he will rely on something most aspiring immigrants here can't: membership in a class the U.S. State Department recognizes as under attack. "Social discrimination against LGBT persons was widespread" in Honduras, reads the department's 2013 international human-rights report, using an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The report notes that "NGOs reported 24 violent deaths of LGBT individuals" through last September.

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Such official assessments have fueled a surge of successful asylum petitions from gays and lesbians in the Americas. Arguing that they suffer persecution because of their sexual orientation, hundreds if not thousands have managed to find safe haven, and a potential path to U.S. citizenship, in recent years. Fellow Latin Americans lodging asylum claims based on generalized violence, meanwhile, are routinely denied.

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