South African AIDS leader marries
Well-known South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat and his activist boyfriend Dalli Weyers were married near Cape Town Jan. 5.
South Africa is one of six nations where same-sex couples have access to full marriage.
Hundreds of people attended the wedding, including Mayor Helen Zille. Gay High Court Judge Edwin Cameron conducted the ceremony, sporting eye glitter for the occasion.
The wedding cake was a chocolate-brownie tower with a king and a cowboy on top.
Achmat, 45, is the founder and chairman of the Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa's leading AIDS-activist organization.
"We decided that the marriage statement as a same-sex couple was a profound one and we want the union to be seen as equal," Weyers told the Sunday Times before the wedding.
Same-sex marriage also is legal in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States ( Massachusetts only ) . Numerous nations ( and eight U.S. states and the District of Columbia ) offer civil unions or registered partnerships that grant same-sex couples some, most or all of the rights and obligations of matrimony.
Brazilian gay
activist murdered
Brazilian gay activist Francisco Técio de Oliveira Soares was stabbed to death Jan. 3.
His naked body was found in the hair salon he ran in the northeastern city of Crato.
Police have speculated the killing was a crime of passion, given that nothing was stolen from the salon.
Técio, 38, organized several local gay pride parades and had been involved in gay activism for more than two decades.
Bishop: 13-year-olds provoke sexual
contact
The Roman Catholic bishop of Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands is in hot water for saying that 13-year-olds seek sex with adults, according to TypicallySpanish.com .
In a Christmas Eve interview with the newspaper La Opinión de Tenerife, Bernardo Álvarez said, "There are 13-year-old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what's more, wanting it, and if you are careless, they will even provoke you."
Álvarez added that such activity harms society the same as homosexuality does, and said cultures where either takes place will pay a price down the road like "other civilizations" paid.
Álvarez's office later released a statement saying he had not meant to suggest that "an event as condemnable as the abuse of youngsters" could be justified.
The Triángulo Canarias Foundation for the Social Equality of Gays and Lesbians condemned Álvarez's remarks.
Canadian students
target gay blood ban
The Canadian Federation of Students is stepping up its opposition to Canada's ban on blood donation by any man who has had sex with another man, even once, since 1977, CanWest News Service reported Jan. 3.
Federation spokeswoman Amanda Aziz said the ban is outdated and "a form of institutionalized discrimination."
Opposition to the ban has provoked renewed organizing at the University of Toronto and McGill University in particular, the report said.
A spokeswoman for Health Canada called the policy "science-based" and said men who have sex with men are not the only individuals targeted.
People who visited the United Kingdom or France between 1980 and 1996, for example, also are banned from donating blood, because they may have a type of mad-cow disease.
Canadian Blood Service said it is continuing to study the issue.
Current HIV testing can detect infection within days of its taking place.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley
