Brazilian Portuguese signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a 6-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies co-existed. All of the CPLP countries have signed the reform. In Brazil, this reform has been in force since January 2016. Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries have since begun using the new orthography. Regional varieties of Brazilian Portuguese, while remaining mutually intelligible, may diverge from each other in matters such as vowel pronunciation and speech intonation. The existence of Portuguese in Brazil is a legacy of the Portuguese colonization of the Americas. The first wave of Portuguese-speaking immigrants settled in
LGBT rights in the Americas nine other nations still have criminal punishment for "buggery" on their statute books. These nine countries are Jamaica, Dominica, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Guyana, the last of which is on mainland South America. They are all former parts of the British West Indies. The British, French, Spanish and Portuguese colonists, who settled most of the Americas, brought Christianity from Europe. In particular, the Roman Catholic Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, both of which oppose legal recognition of homosexual relationships followed by Eastern