Czech Parliament to consider partner bill
The Czech Republic Parliament will again consider a same-sex registered-partnership bill in coming weeks, Radio Prague reported Oct. 4.
Since the last attempt to enact partnership registration, public opinion has shifted to favor recognition of same-sex unions, the report said.
The proposal would grant registered couples most marriage rights but withhold adoption rights.
Sandals resorts
drop gay ban
The Sandals Caribbean resorts dropped their ban on gay couples Oct. 11, London's The Guardian reported.
The announcement came just before a spokesman for the chain was to appear on the BBC to defend the ban.
The company had been prohibited from advertising on London's subway by Mayor Ken Livingstone because of the policy.
Sandals banned gays from resorts in Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Jamaica and St. Lucia, reports said.
Aussie gays unhappy about election
Australian gay activists say they fear renewed attacks on the human rights of GLBT people following the Oct. 10 re-election of conservative Prime Minister John Howard.
Howard's coalition increased its majority in the House of Representatives and looks set to take control of the Senate, with help from the fundamentalist Christian party Family First.
'The recent same-sex marriage ban was a walk in the park compared to what's in store,' said leading national activist Rodney Croome of the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group. 'Gay parenting, gay characters on television, gay partnership registries and gay antibias laws will all now be in the government's sights.'
Croome also lamented the election of antigay campaigner Michael Ferguson to the House of Representatives.
'The practical, down-to-earth people of Ferguson's Tasmanian electorate will be shocked by the fundamentalism of their new representative,' he said. 'Already Ferguson has thanked Jesus for his election.'
Croome said 'politicians wearing religion on their sleeve like this is something Australian electors are not used to, but will sadly be seeing a lot more of.'
Anglicans want Episcopalian apology
A commission of the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the U.S. Episcopal Church is the American branch, called on the Episcopal hierarchy to apologize Oct. 17 for approving the election of openly gay and noncelibate Gene Robinson as bishop of the New Hampshire diocese.
Until the apology is offered, the commission said, the 51 Episcopalian bishops who participated in Robinson's consecration—including U.S. Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold—should consider withdrawing from functions of the Anglican Communion.
Britain's Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association denounced the development.
'The Anglican Church is creating a fantasy world in which gay people are either evil or unworthy of participation as full citizens,' the group said.
'Platitudes about 'hating the sin but loving the sinner' are no longer acceptable,' said George Broadhead, the group's secretary. 'They can no longer expect gay men and women to live lives of loneliness and isolation.'
Members of the London gay direct-action group OutRage! zapped the commission's chairman, Archbishop Robin Eames, Oct. 18 as he exited a press conference on the matter at St. Paul's Cathedral.
'We are disappointed that you failed to unambiguously defend gay human rights,' shouted OutRage!'s Peter Tatchell. 'You had an opportunity to challenge Anglican homophobia and you failed.'
Tatchell said Eames was startled by the 'ambush.'
On Oct. 19, the New Hampshire diocese responded: 'We acknowledge and regret the pain and confusion caused by the election and consecration of our bishop. We now realize more fully that our action, in response to a sincere understanding of God's calling, has caused deep distress for many in our communion.'
But, the diocese added, 'We affirm the ministry of our bishop and applaud his efforts at reaching out in ways that are sensitive and caring, especially to those who are deeply distressed by his election and consecration.'
Italian Cabinet official calls gays faggots
Italy's Cabinet minister for Italians who live overseas called gays 'faggots' in mid-October.
'Poor Europe: the faggots [culattoni] are in the majority,' said Mirko Tremaglia.
He made the remark after a European Parliament committee urged that the Italian nominee for European Union justice commissioner, Rocco Buttiglione, be rejected for having called homosexuality a 'sin.'
On Oct. 13, in an interview with La Repubblica, Tremaglia refused to back down.
'I called them faggots and I repeat it,' he said. 'I'm a Bergamo man and I don't go around there saying 'gays', I say 'faggots' because that's what we call them where I'm from. ... There's no point in philosophizing about it; I'm against [homosexuality] and those that aren't—well, that's their business.'
Brit jailed in
Morocco for gay sex
A 66-year-old British man, Kenneth Watson, was sent to jail for a year in Morocco Oct. 4 after being caught having sex with two young men ages 16 and 18.
The 18-year-old also was jailed. The 16-year-old, a minor, was released.
The sentence was handed down by a court in the southern city of Taroudant.
Homosexual sex is both illegal and reportedly widely practiced in Morocco.
Toronto police chief poses for gay mag
Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino appears on the cover of this month's Fab, a Toronto gay magazine, surrounded by models dressed as the pop group the Village People.
'The Village People—that's such a police icon, and at the same time it's rooted in gay culture,' Fab editor Mitchel Raphael told the Globe and Mail newspaper. 'The chief said: 'Oh, the Village People. My wife dances to the YMCA.' I think when he made the association that the Village People are so mainstream and that it would be something meaningful to the gay community, he said that's great.'
Fantino arrived at his Toronto job with antigay baggage from his days as police chief of London, Ontario, where he created an antipedophilia task force that mainstream gay activists denounced as 'a gay witch hunt.'
