BRITAIN APPOINTS GAY AMBASSADOR
Britain's first out gay ambassador took up his post in Luxembourg this month.
James Clark, 41, and his partner, Anthony Stewart, are living together in the official ambassador's residence.
U.N. REBELS
AGAINST ANNAN
The United Nations General Assembly rebelled against Secretary-General Kofi Annan April 8 urging him to repeal his Feb. 1 directive that extended spousal benefits to gay employees if their relationship is recognized in their home nation.
Pushed to act by the Vatican and dozens of Islamic and African nations, the Assembly said it is wrong for Annan alone to have redefined what constitutes a family. The U.N. previously has recognized only marriages between one man and up to four women. Several U.N. member nations accept polygamy.
Saudi Arabia's representative called same-sex marriage a 'great evil,' according to the Los Angeles Times. The Vatican's representative said same-sex unions 'subvert' the institutions of marriage and the family.
A spokeswoman for Annan said he is not going to change his mind.
BRIT GAYS TO GET PARTNER RIGHTS
Gay couples in England and Wales will gain a long list of marital rights by registering their relationship if the government's Civil Partnership Bill, unveiled March 31, becomes law.
Spousal rights and obligations would be extended in areas such as immigration, benefits, pensions, inheritance, property and tenancy rights, parental responsibility, hospital visitation and accident compensation.
Some gay activists have denounced the bill, arguing that same-sex couples should have access to ordinary marriage and the additional rights that come with it.
'Lesbian and gay couples are being fobbed off with second-best partnership rights,' said the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association.
'Why are gay couples required to sign a different register to everyone else?' asked GALHA spokesperson Terry Sanderson. 'Why is the government inventing a whole new structure of partnership registration when there is a perfectly good one in place already—called marriage? The government makes great play about its efforts to give equality to gay people, yet it has gone to enormous lengths to avoid giving equality.'
POLL: CANADIAN GAYS SPLIT ON MARRIAGE
An unscientific poll conducted by the Web site of the Toronto gay magazine fab found that only about one-third of gay people care about having access to full marriage.
Thirty-six percent of respondents said gays should 'settle for marriage and nothing less' while 47 percent said gays should 'go for something like civil unions and develop our own customs as long as we have the same rights as straight married couples.'
Eleven percent refuse 'to buy into the heterosexist, oppressive institution of marriage' and 7 percent wish gays would 'help lead a movement to abolish the institution of marriage.'
Over the past 11 months, top courts in the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec extended full marriage to same-sex couples. In response, the federal government is planning to open up marriage nationwide.
PROTESTERS
HARASS CARDINAL
Protesters from the British gay group OutRage! harassed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor on Palm Sunday as he entered London's Westminster Cathedral for mass.
'Your church protects pedophile priests, while persecuting gay people in loving relationships,' chided OutRage!'s Peter Tatchell. 'You support legal discrimination against gay people and oppose gay equality and human rights.'
Murphy-O'Connor remained impassive as he and his aides pushed through the group.
The protesters said they were punched and shoved by clergy and congregants who called them 'sick' and 'unnatural' and ripped placards from their hands.
The signs read: 'Vatican Blocks Gay Human Rights at U.N.,' 'Catholics! STOP crucifying queers' and 'Gays are not 'intrinsically disordered' — Shame on Catholic Catechism!'
'We were protesting against the Vatican's blocking of a U.N. vote last week which would have condemned homophobic discrimination and the imprisonment, torture and murder of gay people,' Tatchell said. 'In over 70 countries homosexuality is still totally illegal, and in seven Islamic states homosexuals face the death penalty. The Vatican opposed the U.N. resolution condemning the persecution of lesbians and gay men. It mobilized the Islamic countries to block the vote in the U.N. Human Rights Commission.'
GAY SUES
CATHOLIC CHURCH
A gay man is using Britain's new sexual-orientation antidiscrimination law to fight the Roman Catholic Church after a Catholic charity refused to hire him because he's gay.
The 27-year-old social worker, who was not named in news reports on the matter, was offered a job by Apostleship of the Sea, which ministers to the crews of ships in British ports, but the offer was withdrawn after the charity learned the man has a same-sex partner.
There is an exemption in the antidiscrimination law for faith groups but it is under assault in a separate case now before the High Court, according to The Independent newspaper.