A group of gay men from Queensland has 'seized' Cato Island, a small - about three square kilometers, and uninhabited island off the northeast cost of Australia and declared it "The Gay & Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands."

The move was reported in the August 19 gay weekly paper The Sydney Star Observer as a protest against the Australian Government's gay marriage ban.

While it might sound like a joke, the group has sent its Declaration of Independence and Constitution to politicians including Australian Prime Minister John Howard and the governor-general on 14 June, to coincide with Brisbane's Lesbian and Gay Pride Festival.

The group said they had received form letters from the Greens and Democrats but not from other parties.

Dale Anderson, who has been proclaimed emperor of the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom told the Star that he had devised the idea following a talk by renown Australian gay activist Rodney Croome in Brisbane last year, at which Croome predicted Howard's gay marriage ban.

"If we can pull this off we'll be our own country and have gay marriages and all those other things that we want to do, basically," said Anderson of the island which is located in the Coral Sea and about six hours out in a boat from Gladstone, Central Queensland.

According to the Star, although a spokesperson for the federal minister for Territories Jim Lloyd told the Star it was not legally possible for the group to declare the island their own and secede from Australia, Anderson differed, suggesting that the group have a right to "territorial compensation" because of the government's anti-gay laws.

On the kingdom's website (www.gaykingdom.org), it reads: "The principal in law of 'Unjust Enrichment' was therefore applicable to this situation. This law states, 'if something is unjustly taken compensation must be made.' The gay group decided that indeed the right to be married to adopt children and the right to be treated equally had been taken from them and Her Majesty's Law of Tort now fully applied."

"His Majesty's Government of the Gay & Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands announces with astonishment, great sorrow, deep grief and great anger at the continued homophobic legislation of the Australian parliament. These new laws on banning gay marriage and adoption are evil and wrong and fly in the face of human rights and are designed to wedge opposition parties ahead of an election. John Howard as Prime Minister is doing to the Gay Community what he done with the Tampa refugees and the children overboard at the last election in that he is creating a crisis where one doesn't exists and is using homophobia as his tool. The gay government also denounces the Australian Labour party for supporting this very evil & homophobic piece of legislation."

Anderson, who said he was not affiliated with any political group and claims to be directly descended from the widely rumoured gay British monarch Edward II, is currently exploring the group's legal options.