Costa Rica may have accidentally approved same-sex unions, according to the Huffington Post. Legislators okayed a measure that changed article 22 of the so-called "Law of Young People." The text previously stated that unions were only recognized if they were between a man and a woman. Now the law recognized "the right to recognition without discrimination contrary to human dignity, social and economic effects of domestic partnerships that constitute publicly, notoriously unique and stable, with legal capacity for marriage for more than three years." Conservative lawmakers are upset over the mistake, and are urging President Laura Chinchilla to veto the bill. However, Chinchilla signed the measure, according to On Top Magazine.
In Canada, an aspiring ballet star from Denmark was expelled from school after officials discovered he was doing gay porn, according to Gay Star News. Jeppe Hansen, 22, has danced around the world before joining the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School last September. He decided to start doing porn earlier this year under the name Jett Black with the twink company Cocky Boys. Hansen is now accusing the ballet school of unfairly trying to define what constitutes art.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill barring same-sex couples from foreign countries from adopting Russian children, according to Advocate.com . The legislature passed the law after France established legal marriage equality rights for gay and lesbian couples in May. The Associated Press noted that this new statute limits adoption possibilities for 600,000 Russian children who do not have parental custody.
Catholic Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez referred to James "Wally" BrewsterPresident Obama's openly gay nominee for U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republicby an anti-gay slur, according to Advocate.com . "Gays are interested in pushing their goals forward, but they know there are a lot of people around the world against that," Rodriguez said in a video. But then after a reporter asked about a Haitian boycott on Dominican poultry and eggs, he referred to Brewster as a "maricon," which translates to a slur.
Pope Francis and his predecessor, Benedict XVI, have issued an 82-page collaborative document in which they reaffirm the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to same-sex marriage, according to Advocate.com . The document (called an encyclical) says, among other things, that marriage should be a "stable union of man and woman." The encyclical appears to be the first one written by two popes, although it bears only Francis' signature.
In Australia, new HIV diagnoses are on the rise in the state of New South Wales, with 409 cases in 2012as compared to 331 in 2011, Gay Star News reported. Annual increases were recorded among men and women, and across all age groups, except those aged under 20. Most of the infections were among men who have sex with other men; however, there was also an increase among heterosexuals, with 56 diagnoses among then in 2012, compared to 42 in 2011.
In Canada, a transgender-rights bill has had a setback, according to Straight.com . Bill C-279 would include transgender and gender-variant Canadians in the Canadian Human Rights Act and protect them against discrimination. However, the private member's bill, introduced by MP Randall Garrison, failed to make it to a final vote before the Senate's summer recess began. The House of Commons passed the bill March 20, and it then went on to the Canadian Senate.
In the UK, a new summer camp has launched for LGBT youthsa first of its kind, Pink News reported. Mosaic LGBT Youth Centre has announced the UK's first summer camp catering exclusively for teenagers 13-18 who identify as LGBT, or who are questioning their sexual orientation and/or gender. The camp will take place Aug. 18-24 in Snowdonia, Wales.
In Chile, a gay teen will lose his entire leg after a gang of weapon-wielding individuals attacked him, Gay Star News reported. Esteban Navarro, 19, is struggling to stay alive in hospital as he recovers from the multiple injuries he suffered from the savage encounter. On June 23, a group of six holding knives, iron bars and machetes attacked Navarro, and reportedly called him "maricon," an anti-gay slur. Last year, four neo-Nazis murdered gay man Daniel Zamudio; a subsequent measure, the Zamudio law, ensures punishment against anti-gay violence.
The Democratic Action Party's Teh Yee Cheu, a state government lawmaker in the Malaysian state of Penang, has proposed setting up a committee to protect the welfare of transgender people, according to Gay Star News. The development has led the state opposition leader, Datuk Jahara Hamid, to say that the measure could lead to marriage equality in the state. Hamid, leader of the Barisan Nasional coalition in the assembly, added that transgender people should live as the gender of their birth.
In Britain, former First Sea Lord Alan West of Spithead said he was "shocked and appalled" at the way gay people were previously treated in the armed forces, according to Pink News. (The First Sea Lord heads the Royal Navy and the whole naval service.) As for the treatment, West said, "I stopped it immediately and I then pushed very hard to allow them to be
accepted in the armed forces and thank goodness we did it, because it has worked brilliantly and was a good thing to have done." West made the comments in a recent debate over a marriage-equality bill.
After making comments critical of same-sex marriage and adoptions during a televised debate, the candidate for Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) spent the next two days qualifying his remarks, according to UTSanDiego.com . Facing off against opponent Francisco Vega de Lamadrid of Mexico's National Action Party for the post of governor of Baja, Fernando Castro Trenti said that he opposed any alliance with a party that permits gay marriages and adoptions. Trenti later apologized and met with gay-rights groups.
UK sexual health charity Terrence Higgins Trust has weighed in on a story in The Mirror that focuses on so-called "bug-chasers"men who are willingly having unprotected sex in order to become HIV-positive, according to Pink News. The Mirror cited a man ("Nick") that hundreds of bug-chasers are meeting in online forums. (The paper also cites a controversial 2003 Rolling Stone article on the subject.) The trust's Cary James said, "We are aware of a tiny minority of people who meet online to discuss bug-chasing as a sexual a fantasy, but the reality is that very few will act on this in the real world."