The Queen of England's official composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, has been denied the right to enter an official civil partnership with his longtime partner on the remote Scottish Orkney island of Sanday, where they live.
The Orkney Islands Council blocked the wedding, claiming the local Sanday marriage registrar, Charlie Ridley, who later resigned in protest, was not authorized to perform gay unions.
Instead, the council said, Davies and partner Colin Parkinson could travel 90 minutes by boat to the Orkney capital of Kirkwall and marry at the central registration office. Later, following extensive media coverage, the council reportedly also offered to send a senior registrar from Kirkwall to Sanday to conduct the ceremony.
Reports varied as to why Ridley allegedly lacked authority to perform civil partnerships, with some saying he was unqualified because he was too new on the job, and others saying the council always intended for the ceremonies to be performed only by one or two Kirkwall-based senior registrars because it didn't expect there to be any demand elsewhere.
Davies initially sought legal help to challenge the edict against Ridley, but gave up on Jan. 10 after Ridley resigned his position.
"Everything has gone so sour, it's spoilt everything for us," Davies told local media. "We are under the impression that a local registrar can conduct civil ceremonies. ...
I will not give the council the pleasure of me marrying in Kirkwall. We will do it elsewhere in the U.K.
"
Meanwhile, the islands council appears to have taken punitive action against Ridley, who operates a small, free tourist attraction called the Sanday Light Railway. In the letter in which Ridley was informed he could not conduct civil partnerships, the council also told him his miniature railway lacks a required $10,000 annual public entertainment license, which Ridley says he cannot afford.
"The council approved the planning application for the railway and we have been operating with no problems," he told local media. "But as soon as I apply for this gay civil partnership, I get this letter which effectively closes us."
As a result, Ridley has begun dismantling the $100,000 railway.
On Jan. 6, well-known British gay activist Peter Tatchell called for a tourism boycott of the Orkneys if officials don't stop being obstructionist.
"The Orkney officials seem to be creating no-go areas for civil partnerships," he told Sunday Times. "It smacks of sexual apartheid."
Disagreement over gay issues may destroy the Anglican Communion, says the communion's spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Church conservatives object to the U.S. Episcopal Church's installation of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire, U.S. and Canadian dioceses' support for blessing same-sex unions, and other liberal positions of individual bishops and various national churches that make up the worldwide Anglican Communion.
In the United States alone, at least 22 congregations have disaffiliated from the Episcopal Church and linked up instead with the "Convocation of Anglicans" headed by the powerful, antigay Anglican primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola.
"I fear the situation slipping out of my control," Williams said in a British ITV network documentary aired this month. "I fear schism. ...
We can't take it for granted that the Anglican Communion will go on as it always has been."
More fuel was added to the fire recently when British media reported that as many as 50 gay or lesbian priests in the Church of England may have been allowed by their bishops to enter official civil partnerships without the bishops following a church order to confirm beforehand that the relationships are not sexual in nature.
The House of Lords rebuffed an attempt Jan. 10 to block the United Kingdom's new laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the provision of goods and services.
The unelected Lords voted down the Christian-backed proposal 199-68.
Opponents argued that it would be unconscionable for the government to punish, for example, Christian owners of a bed-and-breakfast for refusing to rent a room to a gay couple. The antidiscrimination protections already have taken effect in Northern Ireland and come into force in the rest of the United Kingdom in April.
The Scottsdale Sister Cities Association in Arizona has come under fire from gay activists over a plan that would pair Scottsdale and Marrakech, Morocco, as "sister cities."
They say it's contradictory for a city with an official gay-tourist outreach program to team up with a country that punishes gay sex with up to three years in prison. "It wouldn't have been our first pick," said Amy Kobeta, director of public affairs at the Arizona Human Rights Fund and Foundation.
"It makes me curious about what guidelines they used in selecting a sister city," she told the East Valley Tribune. "[O]ur hope is that they would look at other areas of the world that are more tolerant."
According to Amnesty International, about 80 of the world's 193 independent nations criminalize gay sex.
Singer Kylie Minogue is the greatest gay icon of all time, according to the British market-research company OnePole. The company questioned more than 5,000 gays and lesbians on the topic. Dolly Parton took second place, ABBA was third, Judy Garland fourth and Marilyn Monroe fifth.
David Beckham placed sixth, Madonna seventh, Audrey Hepburn eighth, Peter Andre and partner Katie Price (aka the model Jordan) ninth, and Liza Minnelli tenth.
Numbers 11-50 were, in order: Cary Grant, Victoria Beckham, Girls Aloud, Barbra Streisand, Pink, Sharon Osbourne, Take That, Cher, Will Young, Elton John, Barbie, Richard and Judy, Cilla Black, Simon Cowell, Julie Andrews, Sister Sledge, Wham!, Rupert Everett, The Cheeky Girls, Fern Britton, Westlife, Beyoncé, Gwen Stefani, Prince, Morrissey, Blondie, Boy George, Charlotte Church, the Village People, Ant Dec, Doris Day, Gloria Gaynor, Gerri Halliwell, Donna Summer, Steps, The Human League, French and Saunders, Scissor Sisters, Gavin Henson, and Gordon Ramsay.
Switzerland's same-sex civil-union law came into force Jan. 1 and the first couple tied the knot a day later in the southern canton of Ticino, Swiss public radio reported.
The men, ages 89 and 60, asked to remain anonymous. They have been together for 30 years.
The law extends spousal rights in the areas of pensions, inheritance, taxes and immigration.
It does not grant rights to adoption or fertility treatment.
Other countries with nationwide civil-union laws include Andorra, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Greenland, a self-governing overseas administrative division of Denmark, also has a civil-union law.
There are state or local partnership laws in parts of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Mexico and the United States.
Full marriage is available to same-sex couples in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and South Africa -- as well as in the U.S.
state of Massachusetts.
Informal cohabitation of same-sex partners has become legally recognized in Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Croatia, Hungary, Israel and Portugal -- and in parts of Australia, Italy and the United States.
More than 200 same-sex couples have taken advantage of the Czech Republic's civil-union law since it came into force last July, local media reported Jan.
2.
The statute, which became law after the Chamber of Deputies overrode President Vaclav Klaus's veto, grants many of the rights and obligations of marriage but withholds equality in the areas of adoption, pensions, taxation and joint ownership of property.
Activist Jirí Hromada of Gay Initiative told the Mladá fronta DNES newspaper he was surprised that so many couples already had tied the knot but expects the number to increase dramatically as "media attention, which is unpleasant for many, fades away.
"
Hromada predicted that around 1,200 couples will enter a civil union in 2007.
The United Kingdom's Royal Air Force has paid to join the gay lobby group Stonewall's "Diversity Champions" program in hopes of making itself more attractive to gay and lesbian potential recruits.
The force also is launching a major advertising campaign in the gay press, with a budget of tens of thousands of dollars.
Member organizations of the Stonewall program are expected to do such things as sponsor gay-pride events, create a gay/lesbian/bisexual staff organization, and extend pensions to same-sex couples.
"The Armed Forces are committed to establishing a culture and climate where those who choose to disclose their sexual orientation can do so without risk of abuse or intimidation," an unnamed Ministry of Defence spokesman told London's Telegraph newspaper.
Gay pop singer George Michael is scheduled to appear in court Jan.
11 to face a charge of being an unfit driver.
Last October, Michael was found passed out in his car in a London intersection. He was arrested and later charged with the driving offense and "cautioned" for marijuana possession.
Meanwhile, Michael has received $3.5 million for a 75-minute performance at Moscow billionaire Vladimir Potanin's New Year's Eve party, London's Daily Mail reported.
That's about $46,000 a minute and $269,000 for each of the 13 songs he sang.
An entourage of 40 musicians and crew members accompanied Michael to the gig at a private estate outside Moscow. Around 250 people attended the lavish celebration.
Potanin is worth $8 billion and is believed to be Russia's ninth-richest citizen.
He manages a company that is the world's largest producer of palladium and platinum, the Daily Mail said.
The obscenity trial of Umut Güner, editor of Turkey's only gay magazine, Kaos GL, was postponed on Dec. 28, activists reported.
Güner could face up to three years in prison over last summer's issue of the magazine, which critically analyzed the relationship between homosexuality and pornography in articles by several noted Turkish writers.
All copies of the issue were confiscated by police in July after the public prosecutor's Press Crimes Investigation Bureau sought and received approval for the seizure from Ankara's 12th Justice Court.
The Supreme Court later upheld the decision, which also was later backed by the Ankara First Instance Criminal Court.
Kaos GL has said it will appeal the seizure and the criminal charges to the European Court of Human Rights.
Sixty-one percent of Mexicans "oppose a constitutional amendment that would permit same-sex marriage," a new Parametría poll has found. Seventeen percent support the idea and 14 percent lack an opinion.
Forty-one percent "oppose a law that would allow same-sex partners to legally register and obtain some benefits and rights." Twenty-eight percent support a civil-union law and 28 percent have no opinion.
Pollsters questioned 1,200 adults.
The margin of error was 2.8 percent.
The Mexico City Legislative Assembly passed a local civil-union law for same-sex couples Nov.
9. The vote was 43-17 with 5 abstentions. The statute, which will take effect by March, grants spousal rights in areas such as property, pensions, inheritance, medical decisions and co-parenting.
Heterosexual couples and nonsexual couples also can register under the law.
The state of Coahuila, which borders Texas, also is considering a civil-union bill. The legislation, introduced by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is supported by Gov.
Humberto Moreira, who said "it would be discriminatory not to ...
respect the rights of every person regardless of sexual affiliation."
Other Latin American localities with same-sex civil-union laws include Buenos Aires, Argentina; Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; and the Argentine province of Río Negro.
Spanish Justice Minister Juan Fernando López Aguilar has proposed that gays who were jailed, tortured or sent to mental hospitals during the 1939-1975 rule of dictator Francisco Franco be compensated with a one-time payment of $15,777 and a monthly pension of $1,052, Britain's The Independent reported Dec.
28.
Many Franco-era gays receive only a small retirement pension because the regime branded them as criminals and prevented them from working, leaving them unable to pay into the system.
Incarcerated gays were often "treated" with electric shocks and forced to watch straight pornography.
Lower-class gays without "connections" were particularly vulnerable to institutionalization. The abuse didn't stop until the late 1970s, and the men's criminal records were not purged until 2001.
Nowadays, Spain is one of the world's gay-friendliest nations.
Full same-sex marriage was legalized in 2005.
Twenty-one Episcopal churches around the U.S.
have disaffiliated from the Episcopal Church USA, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and linked up instead with the powerful, antigay Anglican Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola.
The U.S.
parishes, now members of Akinola's ultraconservative Convocation of Anglicans in North America, oppose the Episcopal Church's consecration of openly gay New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson and its support for blessing same-sex relationships.
Akinola's growing power -- Nigeria has more Anglicans than any other nation except England -- is seen as a possible threat to the supremacy of the Anglican Communion's traditional spiritual leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury in England.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Akinola asked: "Why didn't God make a lion to be a man's companion?
Why didn't he make a tree to be a man's companion? Or better still, why didn't he make another man to be man's companion? So even from the creation story, you can see that the mind of God, God's intention, is for man and woman to be together.
"
He also said that the only time he knowingly shook hands with an openly gay man, he was horrified and "jumped back" as soon as the man came out to him.
Akinola supports draconian antigay legislation that is expected to pass Nigeria's National Assembly this year. The measure seemingly could outlaw such things as belonging to a gay group, reading a gay book, watching a gay movie, visiting a gay Internet site, and socializing by two or more gay people.
For good measure, the bill also bans same-sex marriage. Violating the proposed law would result in up to five years in prison.
The bill states, in part: "Publicity, procession and public show of same sex amorous relationship through the electronic or print media physically, directly, indirectly or otherwise are prohibited in Nigeria.
...
Any person who is involved in the registration of gay clubs, societies and organizations, sustenance, procession or meetings, publicity and public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a term of 5 years imprisonment."
Gay sex already is illegal in Nigeria. It is punished with death in Muslim areas of the nation and with jail time in Christian sections.
Akinola denies he has violated Anglican rules prohibiting bishops from controlling parishes outside a bishop's territory. He says the convocation was formed to serve theologically conservative Nigerian Anglicans living in the U.S.
and that it then began attracting conservative American Episcopalians.
The Anglican Communion is a confederation of national churches that have a total of 77 million members, more than 15 million of them in Nigeria.
There are 26 million Anglicans in England, 8 million in Uganda, 5 million in Sudan, 4 million in Australia, 2.
5 million in Kenya, 2.4 million in the United States, 2 million in Tanzania, 800,000 in Canada, half a million in New Zealand, and smaller numbers in numerous other nations.
The Wyre Borough Council in northwest England and the Lancashire Constabulary, the county police force, have paid $19,500 plus costs to settle a lawsuit filed by an antigay Christian couple.
Joe and Helen Roberts had asked the council to display Christian pamphlets alongside its gay-rights literature. After the council refused, Mrs. Roberts phoned bureaucrats and called homosexuality "morally wrong.
"
The council reported the call to the police who then went to the couple's home in Fleetwood and interrogated them for 80 minutes.
The Robertses filed suit, claiming their rights to religious belief and freedom of expression had been trampled.
The council and the police eventually agreed and, in late December, apologized for the incident and settled with the couple in advance of a High Court hearing.
Joe Roberts called the settlement "a great victory for Christianity, for civil liberties and for anyone who wants to express an opinion which may go against what the political-correctness brigade think."
"Mexico's Madonna," flamboyant gay icon Gloria Trevi, has made a full comeback with her public, including hordes of gay fans, since being released from prison in late 2004.
Her rebound single, Everybody's Watching Me, hit No.
1 in Mexico. It chronicles a gay man's emergence from the closet. The album, How the Universe Was Born, went platinum in the United States.
In 2000, Trevi, her manager and a backup singer were arrested in Brazil on charges of sexually molesting young girls they allegedly enticed into their inner circle by dangling promises of stardom.
Following extradition to Mexico and nearly five years behind bars, Trevi, 38, was acquitted of rape, kidnapping and corrupting minors.
Keywords: Anglican Communion, United States, Episcopal Church, United Kingdom, Archbishop Peter Akinola, Peter Akinola, Czech Republic, Archbishop Peter, New Zealand, Human Rights
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