Fridae

The Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association (TTHA) and other LGBT NGOs have called upon the Ministry of Education to rethink the members of the Committee for Gender Equality, as it contains members who have spoken out against homosexuality.

Anti-gay proponents from US Christian evangelicals Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to Singapore’s Pastor Rony Tan have long linked same-sex marriage to bestiality, incest and polygamy... and now former Republican Representative for Arizona JD Hayworth.

Alex Au meets with Argentinian activist Marcelo Ferreyra and finds out more about the fight for same-sex marriage in Buenos Aires, where a court in the Argentinian capital made a precedent-setting decision to affirm a gay couple's right to be married under the city’s laws. "This is a fruit of a long period of organising and campaigning, news of which has rarely come to Asia," Au noted.

While same-sex marriage supporters stage rallies across Australia on Saturday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Labor Party voted on the same day to retain the country's ban on same-sex marriage.

Australians in the capital cities of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart and Canberra will take to the streets on Aug 1 to demand equal marriage rights for all regardless of sex and sexual orientation.

Could having the highest concentration of (Caucasian) Buddhists - in the United States - have played a part in Vermont's relative ease with legalise same-sex marriage?

The Legislature overrode Gov. Jim Douglas's veto making Vermont the fourth state in the US to allow same-sex couples to marry, and the first to do so without a court order - by just by one vote.

Iowa became the third state in the country to legalise same-sex marriage on Friday while Vermont's bill - although passed - is short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a promised veto by Republican Gov. Jim Douglas.

The Swedish Parliament on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favour of introducing a gender-neutral marriage law which will in fact allow same-sex couples the same marriage rights as heterosexuals.

Japanese nationals wanting to marry their same-sex partners who are citizens of countries where such unions are legal may soon be able to do so.