U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will receive the World LGBT Award at the World Pride in London July 5, according to Pink News. The award is in recognition of her efforts to protect the rights of LGBT people worldwide, and the honor will take place at the "Dine with Pride" fundraiser. In addition, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) will receive the International Community Award.
In Canada, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Loryl Russell ruled that a lesbian couple must share the 13 tubes of sperm that were being stored in a sperm bank for them, Advocate.com reported. The couple, who have two children together—with each mom giving birth once—used the same sperm donor, with the excess sperm being left in cold storage at the Genesis Fertility Clinic. After their 2006 breakup, one of the women decided to have another baby and asked her ex-wife for permission to use the leftover sperm.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) marked the opening of its newest "Out of the Closet" vintage location—and its first outside the United States—with a ribbon-cutting ceremony April 28 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, according to Business Wire. "Out of the Closet" ( www.outofthecloset.org ) is an award-winning chain of 22 retail vintage stores in the United States that AHF owns and operates. Boasting more than 1 million shoppers every year, the chain has raised millions of dollars for HIV/AIDS medical care since the first store opened in Los Angeles in 1995.
In Northern Ireland, a priest in the middle of a gay-porn controversy has requested to leave his parish and take a sabbatical from the priesthood, CNN.com reported. Father Martin McVeigh has admitted he destroyed a memory stick containing "inappropriate imagery" ahead of a church investigation into reports he accidentally showed pictures of naked men to parents of children getting ready for their First Holy Communion. The incident happened at the start of a PowerPoint presentation at a grade school in March.
The UK has passed a law allowing convictions for consensual gay sex under currently repealed laws to be erased from citizens' records, according to Advocate.com . The Protection of Freedoms Act, which has been approved by Parliament, also received the approval of the queen. Although the new measure is too late for famous gay men such as writer Oscar Wilde, thousands of men can apply to the secretary of state to have their convictions taken off their records.
In Denmark, a Copenhagen gay bar has banned heterosexual couples from kissing in the establishment, Pink News reported. A bouncer at the Never Mind bar told Jobbe Joller, the founder of an LGBT organization, that the bar has gotten a lot of emails from gay patrons complaining about the reportedly high number of straight guests. The bouncer added that straight couples kissing was "unacceptable" while the owner said, "In Never Mind we don't want heterosexual guests to dance, strip, kiss or behave inappropriately."
In England, Dr. Julia Gasper—who claimed gay people make up 3 percent of the population but account for half of the child abuse—has lost her second bid for public office, according to Pink News. Gasper received 69 votes—4 percent of the total cast in the Quarry and Risinghurst ward—coming in last. Gasper stirred more controversy recently by suggesting that gay people "stop complaining about persecution" and start expressing gratitude toward heterosexuals.
In St. Petersburg, Russia, gay-rights activist Nikolai Alekseev has become the first man convicted under that city's "gay propaganda" laws, according to Pink News. Alekseev was reportedly fined 5,000 rubles (about $170) for the promotion of homosexuality among minors. In April, Alekseev held up a sign reading "Homosexuality is not a perversion" outside the Smolny Institute.
Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland's 4 million Catholics, won't resign after a BBC documentary accused him of assisting in the cover-up of abuse committed in the 1970s by pedophile priest Brendan Smyth, according to KFVS12.com . Brady had the film exaggerated his role in his interviews of two teenage boys Smyth abused. Smyth was eventually convicted on more than 70 counts of child sexual abuse; he died in 1997 in a military prison.
François Hollande, the new president-elect of France, is expected to push marriage equality and same-sex adoption, according to Pink News. In a runoff election, the Socialist Hollande edged incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. Currently in France, same-sex couples can only enter civil solidarity pacts; however, in his manifesto, Hollande pledged, "I will open the right to marriage and adoption to homosexual couples." He is slated to take office May 15.
