The Federation of Gay Games ( FGG ) announced Dec. 2 that it had facilitated and participated in a historic first meeting between the International Olympic Committee ( IOC ) and LGBT sports organizations. The meeting followed a promise newly elected IOC president Thomas Bach made during his first official visit last October to Sochi, Russia, site of the 2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. The meeting took place Nov. 30 in Paris, where Bach was present for the 100th anniversary of the FIE ( world fencing federation ). Present for the FGG were its co-president emeritus and VP for diversity Emy Ritt and FGG VP for external affairs Marc Naimark, both residents of Paris.
Israeli President Shimon Peres has publicly backed marriage rights for same-sex couples, according to YNet News.com . Peres said that "even a person who is a homosexual is a human being, and he has rights. We have no power to take away [that person's] rights." Peres' comments came in response to a new bill the Justice Ministry is promoting that's called "Living Together," which attempts to regulate some form of a civil partnership between gay and lesbian couples.
The new leader of the World Psychiatric Association has come out as gay, and has demanded action to stop homosexuality from being treated as an illness, according to Gay Star News. Speaking with The Guardian, Dinesh Bhugra said, "Being gay is an important part of me, but a private part." Next year Bhugra—who grew up in northern India and who has been partnered for 30 years—will become the first openly gay president of the World Psychiatric Association.
Britain's Supreme Court rejected an appeal from devoutly Christian couple Hazelmary and Peter Bull, who denied two gay men a room at their hotel, according to The Huffington Post. In its judgment, the court said the high-profile case and the legal issues it had raised were "a measure of how far we have come in the recognition of same-sex relationships," adding that the couple's act constituted discrimination. The Bulls refused to let Steven Preddy and Martyn Hall stay in a double room at the Chymorvah House hotel in Cornwall, southwest England, in 2008. A county court and the Court of Appeal both ruled that the Bulls had discriminated against the gay couple.
German doctors are calling for the end of a ban on gay men donating blood, according to Gay Star News. The German Medical Association has said it would aim to do everything "within its means" to remove the ban, which affects most of Europe. While countries like the United Kingdom and Sweden allow gay and bisexual men to donate if they have not had sex in a year, other European countries like Germany rule them out altogether, claiming that men who have sex with men fall into the "high risk" category of potential HIV risk.
James "Wally" Brewster, the openly gay man who is the newly installed U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, is facing some backlash from that country, according to CNN. High-profile Catholic Church leaders have criticized the new diplomatic appointment as a sign of a lack of respect from President Obama. However, a recent editorial in the Dominican Republic's El Nacional newspaper urged readers to stop focusing so much on the new ambassador's sexual orientation, even though it has "generated more attention than his diplomatic mission."
In England, 63-year-old Ronald Hayes died two days after suffering a head injury when he was attacked outside a gay pub, according to BBC News. Hayes was attacked after leaving the Liverpool Arms, and later died of blunt force trauma. Two 26-year-old men from Ellesmere Port have been arrested on suspicion of Hayes's murder; they have posted bail.
Olympic diver Tom Daley has revealed he is in a relationship with a man, according to BBC News. In a YouTube broadcast, the 19-year-old London 2012 bronze medallist said, "In spring this year my life changed massively when I met someone, and they make me feel so happy, so safe and everything just feels great. That someone is a guy." Daley said his father Rob, who died of cancer aged 40 in 2011, always said to him, "As long as you are happy, I'm happy," with the swimmer adding, "My mum has been so supportive as well." Advocate.com reported that the "other day" is Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, 39.
The Ecuadorian government has denied a marriage license to a second gay couple, according to an On Top Magazine item. Santiago Vinces and Fernando Saltos were joined in Guayaquil by dozens of supporters waving placards as they marched to the civil-registry office to apply for a marriage license. ( Pamela Troya and Gabriela Correa made headlines when they were rejected in August. ) In Ecuador, same-sex couples may enter into civil unions; however, marriage is reserved for heterosexual couples.
A lesbian couple was subject to anti-gay discrimination while waiting in a Canadian restaurant, Global News reported. Carolyn Shaughnessy said she was having dinner with her girlfriend at Le Manoir in the Montreal suburb of Pointe-Claire when the manager told her to leave. "[The manager] just kept saying that what we were doing was inappropriate," added girlfriend Jessica Goldberg. The restaurant's owner, Peter Segakis, has reached out to the couple to apologize on behalf of his manager.
Maxim Martsinkevich ( the Russian neo-Nazi who recently fled the country to avoid prosecution under "extremism" charges ) is reportedly back to luring gay men into an apartment and then beating, harassing and intimidating his victims—while filming the supposed "confessions" of pedophilia and homosexuality to publish online, according to Advocate.com . However, Alexander Bohun—a gay former contestant on the Ukranian version of The X Factor who says that Martsinkevich and others victimized him—has opened a criminal investigation into the harassment his attackers captured on video.
Australia's highest court will not rule on the continent's government's challenge to a marriage-equality law in the Australian Capital Territory ( ACT ) until after same-sex couples have begun marrying in that jurisdiction, Gay Star News reported. Same-sex couples will be able to begin marrying in the ACT Dec. 7; the court is slated to rule Dec. 12. It was feared the court would rule on the matter before Saturday, preventing any couples from marrying before it handed down its decision.
A group of senators has proposed reforms that would allow same-sex couples to marry throughout Mexico, according to an On Top Magazine item. Under the proposal, Mexico's Federal Civil Code would establish marriage as "the free union of two people" and state legislatures would have to adapt their laws to "regulate the institution of marriage based on the principles, human rights and individual guarantees provided in the Constitution." Much like the United States, Mexican states currently decide on marriage.
