Norway rejects
same-sex marriage
Norway's parliament Nov. 18 rejected a bill to make the nation's marriage law gender-neutral.
Norway already offers gay registered partnerships that grant every right of marriage except access to adoption.
The bill was opposed by Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik's Christian Democratic Party and by right-wing parliamentarians.
Argentines march
Some 10,000 people marched in Buenos Aires' 13th gay-pride parade Nov. 20.
'It was much more fun than I would have ever thought,' said first-timer Mariano Lago, 27. 'We carried the big big big pride flag for a while, then went to dance along this truck all over Avenida de Mayo.'
The parade's theme was 'All of society for the right to diversity—civil unions for the whole country.'
Two hundred antigays protested in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral.
'We have nothing against them and we didn't come to attack them, but we're not going to let them take the Catholic Church,' one of the protesters told the daily newspaper Clarín.
During last year's parade the cathedral was spray-painted with graffiti reading 'Church = dictatorship', 'Rapist priests' and 'Nazi priests.' The vandals chanted, 'Here is the repression of the Holy Inquisition.'
To date, civil unions have been enacted only in Buenos Aires and in Río Negro province.
Australia: 20% of lesbian couples have kids
About 20 percent of Australian lesbian couples have children living with them, a study presented by the federal minister for family and community services has found.
The report, Diversity and Change in Australian Families, also found that 5 percent of gay-male couples have kids living with them, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Nov. 24.
Research author David de Vaus of La Trobe University suggested there are 28,144 lesbian couples and 41,535 male couples in Australia, which has a population of 19,913,144. Single gays and lesbians with children were not included in the study.
De Vaus also found that gay and lesbian couples are more educated than their heterosexual counterparts—with coupled gay men twice as likely as coupled straight men to have a college degree. Coupled homosexuals also make more money than coupled straight people. Thirty percent of coupled gay men are in the highest income brackets compared with 23 percent of coupled straight men. Twenty-three percent of coupled lesbians are in the highest income brackets compared with 7 percent of coupled straight women.
Forty percent of the coupled homosexuals have no religious affiliation compared with 15 percent of coupled heterosexuals, according to the Sydney Morning Herald's summary of the data.
Sizzla is unrepentant
Jamaican dancehall music star Sizzla, barred from entering the United Kingdom due to his antigay lyrics, will not apologize for them, the BBC reported Nov. 25.
'They've got to apologize to God because they break God's law,' he told the BBC's 1Xtra station. 'Why must I apologize to corruption? How can I do that? I sing 'fire burn for homosexuals' and sometime in some street I walk, I see them and me no touch them. If I don't like what you're doing I don't come there, if you don't like what I'm doing or what I say you don't come where I'm at.'
Sizzla was banned from the UK while police and government agencies examine lyrics such as 'fire fi di man dem weh go ride man behind,' which means 'burn the man who rides a man from behind.'
Activists have targeted numerous other Jamaican dancehall stars who write and sing similar lyrics, including Elephant Man ( 'Queers must be killed' ) , Vybz Kartel ( 'Kartel puts one [ a bullet ] in a queer's spine' ) , Beenie Man ( 'I'm dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the queers' ) , Buju Banton, T.O.K., Bounty Killer and Capleton.
Broadcaster apologizes for Kressley attack
Veteran Sydney, Australia, radio broadcaster John Laws apologized Nov. 18 for calling Queer Eye for the Straight Guy star Carson Kressley a 'pompous little pansy prig' and a 'pillow-biter.'
The attack aired Nov. 3 on radio station 2UE.
Writing in the gay weekly Sydney Star Observer, Laws said: 'My intentions were humorous and satirical and this is how I believe people who heard my show that morning would have reacted. ... I do apologise to you for any distress my words might have caused, especially if you might have come to believe I was condoning or supporting any form of verbal or physical violence directed at gay men and lesbians.'
