Vandals attack Turkish gay group


The Kaos GL Cultural Center in Ankara, Turkey, was attacked by antigay vandals in late July.

Two pieces of cement were thrown through the center's office windows and landed on the conference-room table. No other tenants of the building were vandalized.

"This is clearly an intrusion and threat to the visibility and rights of the Turkish LGBT community," the organization said in a press statement. "As we [have] experienced all over the world, the more visible the freedom of homosexuals, the [more] intensified [is the] homophobia and hatred towards us."

Kaos GL also publishes a bimonthly GLBT magazine.

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Portuguese do not support gay marriage


The majority of Portuguese people do not support same-sex civil marriage, a poll has found.

The scientific telephone survey, conducted in late July by the Aximage company, found that 55 percent of the population opposes gay marriage, 35 percent supports it and 10 percent has no opinion.

The results were reported in the Aug. 8 issue of the daily newspaper Correio da Manhã.

Among those who favor same-sex marriage, 54 percent also approve of adoption by gay-male couples and 62 percent approve of adoption by lesbian couples -- if a child has been abandoned by its biological parents.

Support for same-sex marriage polled higher than average among city dwellers (41 percent), people under age 30 (68 percent), women (39 percent), college graduates (50 percent), wealthy people (46 percent) and people who have a job (44 percent).

Aximage said the poll had a "standard deviation value" of 0.02.

The new government in Spain, the only country with which Portugal shares a border, is planning to legalize same-sex marriage, following in the footsteps of Belgium, the Netherlands, three Canadian provinces and one Canadian territory, and the U.S. state of Massachusetts.