Bishop withholds his consent after Niagara approves same-sex blessings
SOLANGE DE SANTIS
STAFF WRITER


The diocese of Niagara in mid-November became the second Canadian diocese to approve the concept of blessing ceremonies for gay couples, but Bishop Ralph Spence declined to endorse such action, saying that the diocese needed to discuss it further


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'Son of Section 28' protests hits Kent council
Ben Townley, Gay.com UK


More than 80 demonstrators protested against Kent County Council's 'Son of Section 28' policy on Saturday, calling for council bosses to drop the policy immediately.

The protest, organised by the Queer Youth Alliance, took place outside the County Hall in Maidstone. It follows ongoing campaigns against the council's decision to hold onto the policy, despite Section 28 being repealed by MPs last year.

QYA's David Henry said the large protest was not only an example of the opposition to the policy, but also of the new wave of demonstrations being planned.

"We’ve got absolutely nowhere going down the quiet road of getting this awful policy repealed, and today was about time we stood up for ourselves and shouted a little louder,” he said, warning that campaigns against the council and its leader Sir Sandy Bruce Lockheart would intensify in the coming months.


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Majority may support gay adoption
Norway's Conservative Party is reportedly shifting its position on the issue of gay adoption. If the Conservatives agree to support the issue, it would mean a majority in parliament would favor allowing homosexuals to adopt children.


Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported Monday that a key member of the Conservative Party, Sonja Sjøli, is among those moving to support gay adoption. Sjøli leads the parliament's committee on children's and family affairs.

"The time is ripe to open up for this," Sjøli told NRK. "Personally, I'm in favour of looking into this, but there's a need for more work on the issue."

The Conservatives have formally opposed gay adoption, even though the head of the party is openly gay himself. Per-Kristian Foss, who also serves as Norway's current Finance Minister, generally keeps a low profile on issues involving homosexuality.

Other party colleagues appear ready to support gay adoption as well. Finn Magnar Vallersnes says he has been sceptical, "but I recognize that the world is moving forward."


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Ahern backs equal tax rights for gay couples
By Harry McGee, Political Editor

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern last night said gay couples should be entitled to the same tax and inheritance rights as other couples but firmly ruled out State recognition of gay marriage.

In a series of television interviews to coincide with the 10th anniversary of his leadership of Fianna Fáil, Mr Ahern said extending rights to gay couples in the areas of tax and inheritance was the "fairest, caring and Christian way of dealing with it".

However, he told RTÉ's The Week in Politics last night that it was wrong to group the question of gay marriage with those rights.

"(On) the issue of marriages of gays, I think, personally, we are a long way off that in this country and a lot of other countries as well.


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City set to back same-sex unions
By John Yellig  / Daily Progress staff writer


The Charlottesville City Council is expected to pass a resolution tonight urging the repeal of a ban on same-sex civil unions passed this year by the General Assembly.

The law, House Bill 751, prohibits “a civil union, partnership, contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage.”

The resolution’s sponsor, Councilor Blake Caravati, said he proposed it because the state law limits civil rights.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with gay marriage or the Bible,” he said of the resolution. “It just has to do with civil rights.”


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Democrats fail moral test of helping gays
By Deb Price / The Detroit News


Why is America at its current moral crossroads over gay rights? Every time I ponder how to answer that question, I hear the powerful words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who in a letter from his jail cell thundered in reply to Alabama clergymen who accused him of stirring up trouble, of leading "unwise and untimely" protests against racial segregation.

"I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. ... For years I have hear the word 'Wait.' ... This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.'"

Just as King was denounced in 1963 for supposedly pushing too hard, too fast, gays are being wrongly accused of pushing too hard, too fast for equal treatment. And to borrow from King, whose widow supports equal marriage rights for gay couples, we find ourselves here because injustice is here.

We also find ourselves here because the Democratic Party does indeed have a gay problem -- just not the one that the Republican Party and some prominent Democrats seem to think it has. The party hasn't done too much for gay Americans; it's done far too little


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The Pharisees line up to cast their stones at gay partners
By HOWARD TROXLER, Times Columnist


This past Tuesday in Jacksonville, the Florida Baptist Convention voted to support a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The Baptists want the Florida Constitution to state that marriage is "the union between a man and a woman and is the God-ordained building block of the family and the bedrock of society."

"The church is the voice of morality," declared the sponsor of this resolution, the Rev. Jay Dennis of Lakeland. The voice of morality!

My only question is: Why just this morality? Why just this sin?


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Canadians urge disaffected left to elect a move north
Blue-staters log on to migration sites
By Gene Johnson, Associated Press


SEATTLE -- Got the blue-state blues? Rudi Kischer feels your pain.

The immigration lawyer in Vancouver, British Columbia, plans seminars in three US cities -- Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles -- to tell Americans frustrated with President Bush's reelection that the grass is greener north of the border. And that is not an allusion to Canada's more-lenient marijuana laws


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Conservatives Plan New Assault On Cal. Gay Partner Law
by Mark Worrall 365Gay.com San Francisco Bureau


(San Francisco, California) A conservative Christian law group that lost a bid to overturn California's domestic partner law is preparing to appeal and has announced a recall effort aimed at throwing the judge who made the ruling off the bench.

The law, which is slated to go into effect January 1, 2005 was passed by the Legislature last year. It grants same-sex couples nearly identical legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses.

Lawyers for the Campaign for California Families sued to have the law declared illegal on the grounds it violates the spirit and intent of Proposition 22, a 2000 ballot initiative, that holds California will only recognize unions between a man and a woman.


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3 face trial in gay sex assault
Suspects, including a UT student, set for first court appearance
By Angela Grant


Three men, one a UT student, charged in early August with assaulting a homosexual man will have their first court appearance Thursday.

The three defendants, along with a juvenile suspect, were charged with aggravated sexual assault and aggravated robbery after they picked up the victim, whose name is being withheld due to the sexual nature of the allegations, from Oil Can Harry's, a gay bar in the Warehouse District, and returned to his apartment, where they alledgedly began assaulting him.

On Thursday, Darren Gay, a biochemistry senior, Donald Bockman, a former UT student, and Shawn Regan will formally designate the attorneys who will represent them. The hearing is the first step in court procedures expected to last at least one year.


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Attorney Already Using Amendment 3 in Case
An attorney has cited Utah's new amendment against gay marriage in arguing against enforcement of a court protective order.


SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- An attorney has cited Utah's new amendment against gay marriage in arguing against enforcement of a court protective order.

Amendment 3 does not take effect until Jan. 1, but lawyers are exploring ways to employ its prohibition of legal recognition for any domestic union that is substantially equivalent to a marriage.

Salt Lake attorney Mary Corporon recently filed a motion contending that Amendment 3 makes it unconstitutional to enforce a court protective order against her client that his former live in girlfriend got from a judge.

Corporon's client was charged with violating the order that was to keep him away from the girlfriend and the apartment they formerly shared