MANILA – Actor Markki Stroem is starring in a new boys' love (BL) series titled “Unlocked,” he
announced via Instagram on Tuesday.
“Cats out of the bag! Something a little more risqué than your typical ‘BL.’ Thank you direk (Adolfo Alix Jr.) for the opportunity! Watch out for it on the Asian LGBTQ streaming site GagaOOLala,” he wrote.
According to Stroem, “Unlocked” is a 6-episode anthology series about gay relationships under the lockdown.
Stroem is part of the first episode opposite Mike Liwanag which will premiere on July 9. New episodes will be unveiled every week.
According to his post, “GagaOOLala will also partner up with #ExtendtheLove, a fundraising project to help film workers in the Philippines during the quarantine.”
news.abs-cbn.com
LONDON -- Watford striker Troy Deeney believes there is probably "one gay player in every football team".
Deeney suspects gay footballers are worried about the scrutiny that would follow if they reveal their sexuality while still playing.
But the 31-year-old claims one top player coming out would lead to others following their lead.
Talking on the BBC's Grounded with Louis Theroux podcast, Deeney said: "I would go on record saying that there is probably one gay or bi-person in every football team. They're there, they are 100 percent there.
"I think people that are gay or from that community definitely are very worried about having to shoulder the responsibility of being the first. I think once the first comes out, there would be loads.
"If he come out and said it, I genuinely believe you would get in the first week at least 100 people that went 'me too'. Just because they don't want to be the face of it."
Former Norwich and Nottingham Forest striker Justin Fashanu, who declared he was gay in 1990 and died in 1998, remains the only openly gay male footballer in British history.
Despite acknowledging some players would fear criticism, Deeney, who is preparing for the Premier League's return on June 17, believes the current era is a good time for sportsmen to declare if they are gay.
"I think there is now a bigger platform than ever to be a gay athlete of any nature," he said.
"I also wonder, why people finish football, rugby, whatever the sport it might be, and then go 'I am gay'... I feel like it must be a real heavy load to carry throughout all your whole sporting career."
Agence France-Presse
Larry Kramer, a prominent gay rights activist whose vociferous writings and actions took on a lagging government response to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, has died. He was 84 years old.
"Rest in power to our fighter Larry Kramer. Your rage helped inspire a movement. We will keep honoring your name and spirit with action," tweeted Act Up -- the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power -- one of several groups he founded as the HIV virus ravaged the gay community in the late 20th century.
Citing Kramer's husband, The New York Times attributed his death to pneumonia. The octogenarian had suffered a number of afflictions in his storied life, including HIV and liver disease, for which he underwent a transplant in 2001.
In 1981 Kramer founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis, the first organization supporting HIV-positive people, leaving a year later following disputes with his fellow organizers.
He went on to found Act Up in 1987, leading protest marches and disruptions of government offices, Wall Street and Catholic leadership to shock US leaders into combatting AIDS.
Born on June 25, 1935 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Kramer graduated from Yale in 1957 before doing a stint in the Army.
He then made a foray into film, working in London on "Dr. Strangelove" and "Lawrence of Arabia."
He was known as a provocative screenwriter, nabbing a 1971 Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love."
He later turned to themes of homesexuality, publishing in 1978 a lightning rod of a first novel -- "Faggots" -- which through its piercing satire explored promiscuity, drug use and sadomasochism in the gay community.
In the early 1980s Kramer was among the first activists to recognize AIDS as a fatal infection likely to spread and kill globally across lines of gender.
"Our continued existence depends on just how angry you can get.... Unless we fight for our lives we shall die," he wrote in a 1983 essay published in a gay-focused outlet, the New York Native.
Though his harsh rhetoric and often combative style alienated some, he channeled his furor over the government's perceived apathy on AIDS into urgent work that ultimately transformed American health care.
"In American medicine, there are two eras -- before Larry and after Larry," Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert now leading the US fight against the coronavirus pandemic, told The New Yorker in 2002.
Fauci, who became one of the nation's most prominent voices on federal AIDS research, developed a friendship with Kramer after the activist grabbed his attention after dubbing the doctor an "incompetent idiot" and killer in 1988.
Kramer's singular voice played a key role in pushing the federal government to improve testing and approval of drug regimes for HIV patients.
"Once you got past the rhetoric," Fauci told the NYT upon learning of the activist's death, "you found that Larry Kramer made a lot of sense, and that he had a heart of gold."
"Larry Kramer's death hits our community hard," tweeted GLAAD, a nonprofit centered on LGBTQ acceptance.
"He was a fighter who never stood down from what he believed was right, and he contributed so much to the fight against HIV/AIDS."
Agence France-Presse
DETROIT -- Pete Buttigieg, who entered the Democratic presidential race as a relative unknown and positioned himself as the future of the party during an improbable rise to the top tier of a crowded field, ended his White House bid on Sunday.
Buttigieg, 38, a former two-term mayor of South Bend, Indiana, an Afghanistan war veteran and the first openly gay candidate to make a competitive run for the US presidency, narrowly won the Iowa caucuses that kicked off the nominating race in February and finished a close second in New Hampshire.
But his early momentum from those rural, mostly white states did not translate into electoral success in the more diverse states of Nevada and South Carolina.
After finishing a distant third in the Nevada caucuses, Buttigieg came in fourth on Saturday in South Carolina, where he won support from just 3 percent of African-American voters.
The centrist Democrat's withdrawal from the race could help former Vice President Joe Biden, a fellow moderate who got a much-needed victory on Saturday and now is looking to wrest momentum from liberal front-runner Bernie Sanders in this week's 14-state Super Tuesday nominating contests.
Speaking in South Bend, Buttigieg said his campaign began its "unlikely journey" with a staff of four, no big email lists and no personal fortune.
"We got into this race in order to defeat the current president and in order to usher in a new kind of politics," Buttigieg told a crowd of supporters. Now, he said, it was time to "step aside and help bring our party and our country together."
In a tweet, Biden said Buttigieg had run a “trail-blazing campaign based on courage, compassion, and honesty,” adding: “This is just the beginning of his time on the national stage.”
Buttigieg had sought to unite Democrats, independents and moderate Republican voters, arguing his status as a Washington outsider could rebuild a majority to defeat Republican President Donald Trump in November's election.
But he faced persistent questions about his ability to win over black voters, a core Democratic voting bloc.
Buttigieg's tenure as South Bend mayor, which ended on Jan. 1, drew scrutiny for a lack of diversity on the local police force and a fatal shooting of a black resident by a police officer. He also lacked Biden's national profile or long-standing relationships with the black community.
HISTORIC CAMPAIGN
Buttigieg would have been the first openly gay major-party presidential nominee in US history. He did not make his sexuality a centerpiece of his candidacy, although his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, a teacher he married in 2018, regularly accompanied him on the campaign trail.
Buttigieg, often referred to simply as "Mayor Pete," promised a departure from the politics of the past. As a "proud son" of Indiana, he argued he could speak directly to voters struggling economically in crucial swing states such as Michigan and Wisconsin that handed Trump the presidency in 2016.
A US Navy veteran who often spoke of his military service and Christian faith, Buttigieg was critical of Sanders' uncompromising liberal proposals, which Buttigieg warned could alienate moderate Democratic voters ahead of "the fight of our lives" to unseat Trump.
At the televised debate ahead of the South Carolina primary, Buttigieg said Sanders' shifting estimates to fund proposals such as a government-run healthcare system for all would doom the Democratic Party in November.
"I can tell you exactly how it all adds up. It adds up to four more years of Donald Trump," Buttigieg said.
Buttigieg had considerable early success in fundraising, proving popular with the Hollywood and big-tech money scenes. He came under fire from Democratic competitors, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, who questioned whether he was beholden to his big-money donors and criticized his ritzy, closed-door fundraiser in a wine cave in California.
His campaign, however, faced tighter purse strings after heavy investments in the first two voting states and raised only $6 million in January. Sanders, by comparison, raised $25 million the same month.
Before Biden's South Carolina win, Buttigieg had argued he was the only candidate who had proven he could beat Sanders in state contests. His campaign had laid out a strategy to get through Super Tuesday contests and focus on later primaries where it believed it had an edge.
That changed as the race remained outsized and questions mounted about possibly non-viable contenders splitting moderate votes to give Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, an easy path to the nomination. A campaign aide told Reuters that Buttigieg was not going to be a "spoiler" who helped Sanders win.
Still, his decision to drop out before Super Tuesday caught some supporters by surprise. Buttigieg spent the day in Selma, Alabama, commemorating a landmark civil rights march in 1965. A big crowd had gathered later on Sunday for the candidate's scheduled event in Dallas when they learned he was no longer coming.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
GENEVA - For gay rights campaigner Jean-Pierre Sigrist, the new law being voted on in a referendum in Switzerland on Sunday might have stopped him getting beaten up 4 decades ago.
"And maybe I would not have been laughed at when I went to the police," said the 71-year-old, who believes the law will be "an added safeguard against homophobia."
The new law would widen existing legislation against discrimination or incitement to hatred on ethnic or religious grounds to include sexual orientation.
The change was passed by the Swiss parliament in 2018.
But the populist right wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) and the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU), a small party based on Christian values, are opposed.
Critics of the law, who have forced a public referendum on the issue, believe it will end up censoring free speech.
Eric Bertinat, a UDC local lawmaker in Geneva, told AFP that he believed the law was "part of an LGBT plan to slowly move towards same-sex marriage and medically assisted reproduction" for gay couples.
UDF chief Marc Frueh has called it a "censorship law."
But Sigrist, founder of Switzerland's association of gay teachers, said it would counter growing intolerance.
The retired teacher said he supports freedom of expression, "but not the freedom to say anything at all."
All of Switzerland's major parties except the UDC, the biggest political force in parliament, support the law.
NO TO 'SPECIAL TREATMENT'
Under the new law, homophobic comments made in a family setting or among friends would not be criminalized.
But publicly denigrating or discriminating against someone for being gay or inciting hatred against that person in text, speech, images or gestures, would be banned.
The government has said it will still be possible to have opinionated debates on issues such as same-sex marriage, and the new law does not ban jokes -- however off-color.
"Incitement to hatred needs to reach a certain level of intensity in order to be considered criminal in Switzerland," Alexandre Curchod, a media lawyer, told AFP.
But he admitted that there could be exceptions "if it can be shown that, under the cover of artistic production or joking, someone is in fact engaging in incitement."
Gay rights campaigners are divided over the legislation.
A group called "No to Special Rights!" is opposed, arguing that the gay community does not need special protection.
"I fight for the acceptance and normalization of my sexuality. But for me that also means not asking for special treatment," said Michael Frauchiger, co-head of the group.
Opinion polls show that the Swiss as a whole are broadly in favor of the law, but that the margin between supporters and opponents has narrowed in recent months.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LONDON - Millions of people joined Pride marches around the world in 2019 and gay, bisexual and transgender rights were increasingly in the spotlight, with some countries legalizing gay marriage while others mulled the death penalty for same-sex relations.
The year also marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots against police brutality in New York City, which triggered the modern movement for LGBT+ rights in Western countries.
Here are 10 stories from a year of change for many LGBT+ people around the world:
1. Brunei and Uganda death penalty for gay sex
In March it was revealed that the small East Asian country of Brunei was planning to implement changes to its Islamic penal code that would impose death by stoning for same-sex intimacy.
After a global backlash, with businesses and celebrities such as George Clooney and Elton John boycotting companies owned by Brunei, the sultanate announced in May that a moratorium on the death penalty would be extended.
In October, a Ugandan minister said the east African nation was planning to reintroduce a bill colloquially known as "Kill the Gays." The government denied that the death penalty would be imposed for gay sex following an international outcry.
2. Gabon criminalizes gay and lesbian sex
In July, the central African nation of Gabon banned "sexual relations between people of the same sex", introducing a penalty of up to 6 months in prison and a fine of 5 million CFA francs ($8,482 or P429,867).
The change was not widely reported until later in the year, but an activist who monitors LGBT+ rights in West Africa said he had spoken to 2 Gabonese men arrested under the new law who had to bribe police to be released.
3. Kenya upholds gay sex ban
Kenya's High Court upheld a British colonial-era law criminalizing gay sex by up to 14 years in jail in May, throwing out a petition by LGBT+ campaigners on the grounds that same-sex relations clashed with traditional moral values.
Advocates said the law promoted homophobia in the socially conservative and religious East African nation and violated constitutional rights to privacy, equality and dignity. They are appealing the ruling.
4. Botswana legalizes gay sex
In June, Botswana legalized same-sex relations when the High Court overturned a colonial-era law that had punished consensual gay sex by up to 7 years in prison.
"Discrimination has no place in this world," Justice Michael Leburu said in his ruling, which followed previous judgments in the southern African country that had recognized the right of LGBT+ people to equal protection before the law.
5. Same-sex marriage spreads
Taiwan became the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage in May, despite two-thirds of people voting in a referendum in November 2018 to retain the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.
The self-ruled island was followed by Ecuador in June, with the South American nation becoming the 27th country in the world to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.
The following month, the British parliament voted to extend same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland.
6. Trump's transgender military ban goes into effect
The United States implemented a law in April that banned openly trans people from enlisting in the military, with President Donald Trump stating that trans service members would cause "tremendous medical costs and disruption".
It reversed a policy of Trump's predecessor, President Barack Obama.
7. Brazil's top court rules homophobia is a crime
In May, Brazil's Supreme Court ruled that homophobia and transphobia were crimes under existing anti-discrimination laws in the South American country. This outlawed violence against LGBT+ people and made it illegal to deny them access to education, jobs, shops and public buildings.
The ruling came after President Jair Bolsonaro, a self-proclaimed "proud homophobe", removed LGBT+ responsibilities from the human rights ministry after taking office in January.
8. LGBT-free zones spread in Poland
Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party in campaigns for the European Union elections in May and national elections in October depicted "LGBT ideology" as foreign ideas that undermined traditional values.
While Warsaw's mayor signed a pro-LGBT+ declaration in February, dozens of towns - mostly in conservative, rural Poland - declared themselves "LGBT free" and Pride marches in some cities were attacked by protesters.
9. Georgia Pride marchers defy far-right threats
While millions marched in global Pride celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising this summer, in Tbilisi, Georgia, LGBT+ people and their allies had to scale down their parade amid far-right threats.
In November, the premiere of a film about gay love in the country was attacked by violent ultra-nationalist demonstrators, more than 25 of whom were arrested.
10. "Conversion therapy" bans spread
Germany's cabinet in December backed a law that would ban so-called conversion therapy for minors, as a global movement to end discredited practices that aim to change someone's gender identity or sexual orientation gathered pace.
Conversion therapy, which has been widely condemned by medical associations around the world as ineffective and detrimental to mental health, is illegal in Malta, Ecuador, Brazil and Taiwan.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MALMÖ, SWEDEN - Two Eves on one side of the tree, two Adams on the other, each couple openly flirting: a Swedish diocese said Wednesday it would remove a gay depiction of original sin that hung briefly as an altarpiece.
Created by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, the photo illustration was offered to the Saint Paul Church in Malmo where it was placed to the right of the main altarpiece on the first Sunday of Advent, December 1.
On Wednesday the diocese said it would remove it from the altar -- but not because the Lutheran Church of Sweden had a problem with the gay couples.
Perched in the tree, a transsexual woman is dressed as a serpent, dangling a snake from her hand.
"The fact that there are two homosexual couples in the artwork is completely uncontroversial," the diocese wrote in a statement.
"But the fact that there is a snake, which traditionally symbolizes evil, and that it turns into a transperson could lead to the interpretation that a transperson is evil or the devil."
"The Swedish Church can absolutely not stand for that."
The pastor of Saint Paul, Sofia Tunebro, regretted the decision.
"We've been marrying gay couples for 10 years, and with this artwork, it was a bit like hanging up a wedding photo in the church," she told AFP.
"Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin has done so much for the integration and representation of (LGBTQ people) in the Christian world," said Tunebro, who was ordained 12 years ago.
The 58-year-old artist -- who made headlines 20 years ago with her controversial Ecce Homo exhibit, featuring among other things Jesus in stilettos surrounded by 12 transvestite apostles -- said she too was disappointed.
"My calling has been to create Christian works which LGBTQ people can identify with," she told AFP.
The Church of Sweden, headed by a female archbishop since 2014, was among the first in the world to ordain female priests in 1958, and to marry homosexuals, in 2009.
Also in 2009, Eva Brunne was elected the first openly lesbian bishop in the world, according to Swedish media.
"The Church of Sweden wants to be a modern church and follow changes in society," Magdalena Nordin, a professor of religion at the University of Gothenburg, told AFP.
cbw/po/har
Agence France-Presse
LONDON - LGBT+ people have seen a rise in tolerance in almost every region of the world over the last decade, according to an index released on Monday.
Iceland was named as the most tolerant country towards LGBT+ people in a survey of 167 countries by British think-tank the Legatum Institute, while central Asian country Tajikistan was in last place.
"It is encouraging to see that our 2019 Prosperity Index shows a rise in tolerance towards the LGBT community globally over the past decade," Shaun Flanagan of the institute's Center for Metrics told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"However, the LGBT community, as well as other often marginalized groups, such as immigrants, ethnic minorities and religious groups, still face considerable persecution across certain parts of the world today."
The data is part of the 2019 Legatum Prosperity Index, which measures a host of factors affecting countries' ability to create wealth and wellbeing, ranging from investment environment to health and personal freedom.
Social tolerance towards minority groups increased in 111 of 167 countries over the last decade, and across every region except for Eastern Europe & Sub-Saharan Africa, it found.
The rise in acceptance of LGBT+ people was particularly marked, rising from about one in four people expressing acceptance a decade ago to almost a third in the latest report.
Tolerance towards LGBT+ people was measured according to responses to a Gallup poll that asked more than 130,000 people around the world whether their city or area was a good place for gay and lesbian people to live.
Top-ranking Iceland was followed by The Netherlands and Norway in the 2019 index, while Canada and Denmark took fourth and fifth place respectively.
Several of the least tolerant countries criminalize homosexuality, with penalties including a potential death sentence for men in Mauritania and Somalia, both in the bottom five.
However, legality did not always equal acceptance - lowest-ranked Tajikistan decriminalized gay sex in 1998 but LGBT+ people still face widespread discrimination.
It was followed by Somalia, Azerbaijan, Senegal and Mauritania in second to fourth last place respectively.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
TAIPEI - Some two hundred thousand revelers marched through Taipei in a riot of rainbow colors and celebration on Saturday as Taiwan held its first pride parade since making history in Asia by legalizing gay marriage.
The island has long hosted the region's largest pride marches but this year Taiwan's LGBT community and their supporters had an extra reason to celebrate.
In May, lawmakers took the unprecedented decision to legalize same-sex marriages, becoming the first place in Asia to do so.
Over 2,000 couples have since wed, many of them taking part in Saturday's festival.
"I am very excited because it's the first pride parade after same-sex marriages are recognized and I got married," said Shane Lin, who became one of the first to wed his partner in the days after the new law came in.
"I am very moved that people around the world are joining us," the 31-year-old said.
Behind him passed a stready stream of color, from dancers with gym-honed bodies to unicorn floats and rainbow balloon arches.
"I support marriage equality because it is a basic human right," Henry Wu, a heterosexual teacher who brought his five-year-old son to the march, told AFP.
"Taiwan made huge progress in legalizing same-sex marriages ... I feel very proud we are the first in Asia to do so," he added.
In the last decade, Taiwan has become increasingly progressive on gay rights with Taipei home to a thriving LGBT community and increasingly large pride marches.
Organizers estimated more than 200,000 people attended Saturday's festivities.
But the issue of same-sex equality has deeply polarized society.
[BOLD] Landmark ruling, conservative backlash
Taiwan's Constitutional Court made a landmark ruling in 2017 to legalize gay marriage and ruled its decision must be implemented within two years.
Conservative and religious groups mobilized to oppose amending the Civil Code and comfortably won a series of referendums last November in which voters rejected defining marriage as anything other than a union between a man and a woman.
In May, conservative lawmakers put forward rival bills that offered something closer to limited same-sex unions but those measures ultimately failed in parliament.
Opponents have vowed to punish incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen and the lawmakers who supported the gay marriage law at January 11 elections when voters will elect both a new president and a new parliament.
But it remains to be seen whether the issue will harm her on the campaign trail, especially in more rural and conservative places, during an election that will more likely be dominated by the relationship with China and local economic issues.
Taiwan's gay marriage law still contains restrictions not faced by heterosexual couples.
Same-sex couples can currently only adopt their partners' biological children and can only wed foreigners from countries where gay marriage is also recognized.
"Marriage equality is the beginning, it's not the end," said Leong Chin-fai, a 31-year-old Macanese national who is currently unable to wed his Taiwanese partner.
"We hope to keep pushing for issues including recognition of international marriages, parental and adoption rights," he added.
Taiwan is at the vanguard of the burgeoning gay rights movement in Asia. It is also praised as a "beacon" of democracy in the region for its democratic reforms and civil liberties since it emerged from one of the world's longest periods of martial law.
But International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) noted Taiwan still faces key challenges and passed a motion condemning its use of death penalty Friday as it wrapped up a week-long congress in Taipei, its first held in Asia.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LONDON - Gay and bisexual men in Scotland prosecuted for consensual same-sex activity will receive an automatic pardon under a law which came into effect on Tuesday aiming to correct a "historic wrong".
The law will cover anyone convicted for same-sex activity which is no longer illegal, ranging from gay sex to kissing or flirting, and those affected can apply to have their former police record 'disregarded' or wiped clean.
Hundreds of men in Scotland were living with criminal records as a result of such discriminatory former laws, estimated LGBT+ rights group Equality Network, which said the convictions had hampered careers and overshadowed men's lives.
"We know of people who were prosecuted as late as the early 1990s for things like kissing their boyfriend in the street," said director Tim Hopkins, adding that for men prosecuted in earlier decades especially it could have been "devastating".
"A conviction like this could have meant the end of your career, it could have meant losing your friends, it could have meant losing your family, all of those huge impacts," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"The pardons and the disregard can't undo all of the harm done by these discriminatory laws but they do at least give some comfort to people."
Scotland legalized same-sex activity between men in 1980, though it was not until 2001 that the age of consent was equalized between gay and heterosexual couples.
Thousands of men are thought to have been prosecuted for consensual same-sex contact over the last 150 years, said the Equality Network.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon offered a public apology to those convicted in such cases for a "historic wrong" as the draft law was first published in 2017, and it was passed unanimously by Scottish parliament the following year.
The new bill will pardon all those affected, including those that are no longer living.
However, they must apply to have their criminal records wiped, a free process that the government and campaigners say it necessary because the offences are so wide-ranging it is not possible for authorities to proactively identify them.
The bill is wider-ranging than a similar law introduced in England and Wales, which only automatically pardons those who are dead and which has also been criticized for not including all of the former offences used to target gay men.
"There is no place for homophobia, ignorance and hatred in modern Scotland," said justice secretary Humza Yousaf in a statement on the eve of the law coming into effect.
"This legislation makes good on the commitments made by the First Minister, who gave an unqualified apology for the now outdated and discriminatory laws, and for the harm they caused to many."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
PARIS - The first-ever gay civil unions in Denmark 30 years ago paved the way for full same-sex marriages that are today allowed in 28 countries, even though homosexuality remains illegal in some parts of the world.
Here is an overview.
Europe, gay marriage pioneers
On October 1, 1989, for the first time in the world, several gay couples in Denmark tied the knot in legal civil unions.
Danish homosexual couples would however have to wait until 2012 to be allowed to marry in church.
The right to a religious marriage ceremony was first allowed in The Netherlands in 2001.
Thirteen European countries followed: Belgium, Britain (although not Northern Ireland), Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
Austria allowed gay marriage from 2019.
Some countries allow only gay civil partnerships including Croatia, Cyprus, The Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland.
The Czech government has backed draft legislation that would make the country the first post-communist member of the European Union to legalize same-sex marriage, but its fate is uncertain.
Slovenia also allows civil partnerships but in 2015 rejected in a referendum a proposal to legalize gay marriage.
In 2014 Estonia became the first former Soviet republic to authorize same-sex civil unions.
In Romania a referendum aimed at enshrining a ban on gay marriage in the constitution failed in 2018 because of a low turnout.
Progress in the Americas
Canada was the first American country to authorize same-sex marriage in 2005.
In 2015 the US Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide at a time it was banned in 14 out of 50 states.
The United States' first gay marriage had actually taken place in 1971, when a Minnesota couple obtained a marriage licence thanks to an overlooked legal loophole. The marriage was officially recognized in March 2019, after a five-decade legal battle.
In Latin America five countries allow same-sex marriages: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay, joined by Ecuador in June 2019.
Mexico's federal capital authorized gay civil unions in 2007 and marriages in 2009. Half of its 32 states have followed.
Chile legalized gay civil unions in 2015.
Costa Rica's Supreme Court in 2018 ruled that a ban on same-sex marriages was unconstitutional and gave parliament 18 months to amend the laws.
Cuba left out of its new constitution adopted in February 2019 changes that would have paved the way for legal same-sex marriage. The definition of marriage will be left to a new Family Code which will be put to a referendum.
Taiwan, first in Asia
While much of Asia is tolerant of homosexuality, Taiwan became in May 2019 the first in the region to allow gay marriage.
In the Middle East, where homosexuality is repressed, Israel leads the way in terms of gay rights, recognizing same-sex marriages that are performed elsewhere although not allowing such unions in the country itself.
Several countries in the conservative region still have the death penalty for homosexuality, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Australia (2017) and New Zealand (2013) are the only places in the wider Asia-Pacific region to have passed gay marriage laws.
Africa: marriage in one country
South Africa is the sole nation on the African continent to allow gay marriage, which it legalized in 2006.
Around 30 African countries ban homosexuality, with Mauritania, Somalia and Sudan having the death penalty for same-sex relations.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MOSCOW - Receiving photos of mutilated bodies with the warning "you're next" rattled gay rights activist Nikita Tomilov but when he saw surveillance men outside his home, he fled Russia for good.
The threats via social media came from Pila - Russian for "saw" - a homophobic group which has said it was behind the fatal stabbing in July of an LGBT+ activist whose name was among a dozen on their widely-circulated assassination "blacklist".
"I went to the police when I saw two masked men lurking outside my apartment, but they said they couldn't do anything without proof that these men were there," Tomilov, 22, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation via Skype from a European country.
"What kind of proof could I bring them? And my family members started receiving threats as well. I realised it was too dangerous for me to stay in Russia."
Elena Grigoryeva, 41, was stabbed eight times in the face and back in St Petersburg. The Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, said she was murdered by a local resident she had been drinking with and detained two suspects.
Although the police did not treat the murder as a hate crime initially, they promised to investigate whether Pila had anything to do with Grigoryeva's death after complaints from lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) rights groups.
Pila - which takes its name from the "Saw" American horror movies - is the latest threat to shake the LGBT+ community in Russia, where homosexuality was deemed a criminal offence until 1993 and classed as a mental illness until 1999.
Violence against gay people and hostility from the wider community has been on the rise since 2013 when the Kremlin adopted a gay "propaganda" law as part of a drive to defend what President Vladimir Putin called Russia's "traditional values".
LGBT+ campaigners say the law has helped authorities crack down on activists and contributed to a rise in anti-LGBT+ hate crimes as well as police reluctance to investigate them.
The Russian LGBT Network, which offers legal aid to gay people, said only eight out of 64 cases of physical violence against LGBT+ people that it received in 2018 were investigated by the police.
Moscow police headquarters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova did not respond to requests for comment. In several public statements, Putin has said there is no discrimination against LGBT+ people in Russia.
ATTACKS
Pila has used its website, Instagram, Russia's biggest social network VK and messaging app Telegram to call for gay Russians to be deported, posted a list of LGBT+ activists to be assassinated, and offered cash rewards for attacks on them.
Opinions differ on the danger it poses. The size of the vigilante group, which became active online in mid-2018, and the identities of its backers remain unclear.
Tomilov believes it is a powerful organisation capable of murder, while others see it merely an intimidation campaign, unlikely to go beyond online threats.
"We can't be certain it's a real group that can organise physical attacks on people," said Igor Kochetkov, head of the Russian LGBT Network.
"There isn't a single confirmed fact of assaults, let alone murders, committed by the so-called Pila. What we're seeing is a website that comes and goes, emails and messages on social media."
Pila's website and all of its online accounts were blocked last month after complaints from activists who fear its threats are fuelling homophobia and violence against LGBT+ people.
"They openly call for violence against certain people, but law enforcement has taken no action whatsoever," said Alexander Kondakov, a sociologist at Finland's University of Helsinki who authored a study on anti-gay hate crimes in Russia.
"This terrible situation encourages not just Pila itself, but others like them, too - people see that these actions go unpunished.
LGBT+ rights group Vykhod said the police promised to examine and analyse screenshots of Pilas website last week.
UNPUNISHED
Vitaly Bespalov, editor of the gay news site ParniPlus, received an email on Aug. 26 instructing him to kill Maxim Lapunov - a gay man who went public about being kidnapped and tortured in Chechnya - before Oct. 1 or else be killed himself.
"You, surely, haven't forgotten that boozer Yelena Grigoryeva?" said the email, written in Russian in capital letters, sent from an email address containing Pila's name.
"Our slave offed her – but you'll never find those who ordered it," said the email, seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, using a slang phrase meaning to kill someone.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation was unable to independently authenticate the email or reach Pila for comment. Emails sent to the address used to threaten Bespalov failed to deliver "due to a permission or security issue".
"I filed a complaint to the Interior Ministry," said Bespalov. "But they know they will go unpunished. If they wrote something against Putin, the police would have found them the next day. They understand that no one will even look for them."
Alexei Nazarov, an LGBT+ activist from St Petersburg, was targeted in an identical email on Aug. 26, which was sent to one of his friends who was instructed to kill him. Nazarov declined to name the friend who received the email for safety reasons.
Nazarov said he thought Pila was just a creepy online campaign but its calls for violence were dangerous.
"What if someone mentally unstable reads it, interprets it as a call to action and kills me for real?" he asked.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters outside Indonesia's parliament Tuesday as thousands demonstrated nationwide against a new criminal code that would, among other things, outlaw premarital sex and weaken the country's anti-graft agency.
Protesters covered their faces and scattered in all directions as chaos erupted in the center of the sprawling capital, Jakarta.
Police also fired teargas at rock-throwing protesters in Makassar on Sulawesi island, while demonstrators broke down a barrier outside the governor's office in Semarang on Java island.
"(We) forcibly dispersed student because they were carrying out anarchist acts, damaging government property and throwing stones at police," said Dicky Sondani, a South Sulawesi police spokesman.
The police action came after flag- and placard-waving demonstrators gathered across the Southeast Asian archipelago -- including in cultural capital Yogyakarta and holiday hotspot Bali -- for a second day in a row.
On Tuesday, lawmakers debated a wide-ranging legal overhaul including hundreds of new laws that would criminalize premarital sex, restrict sales of contraceptives, make it illegal to insult the president, and toughen the Muslim majority country's blasphemy laws.
A vote on the bill was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but President Joko Widodo last week called for a delay in passing the proposed changes after a public backlash.
The mooted changes could affect millions of Indonesians, including gay and heterosexual couples who might face jail for having sex outside wedlock, or having an affair.
Widodo's call for a delay came as the Australian embassy in Jakarta issued a fresh travel advisory, warning that the legislation could put unmarried foreign tourists in the crosshairs.
Millions of tourists visit Bali and other beach destinations in the Southeast Asian nation.
Widodo this week stood firm on plans to pass a separate bill that critics fear would dilute the investigative powers of the corruption-fighting agency -- known as the KPK -- including its ability to wire-tap suspects.
Updating Indonesia's criminal code, which dates back to the Dutch colonial era, has been debated for decades and appeared set to pass in 2018 before momentum fizzled out.
A renewed push this year, backed by conservative Islamic groups, was met with a wave of criticism over what many saw as a draconian law that invaded the bedrooms of a nation with some 260 million people -- the fourth most populous on Earth.
An online petition calling for the bill to be scrapped garnered half a million signatures, while hundreds of thousands took to social media to vent their frustration.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
TOKYO - An American man who married his same-sex Japanese partner in the United States sued the Japanese government on Thursday, demanding it grant him long-term resident status.
U.S. national Andrew High and his Japanese partner Kohei, who withheld his family name, reside together in Tokyo and are also seeking 11 million yen ($102,000) in damages in the suit filed with the Tokyo District Court, claiming the government's repeated denial of a long-term visa has impinged on the couple's freedom to live as a family.
Long-term resident status, granted by the justice minister in consideration of special circumstances, has a maximum designated term of five years.
"It would be discriminatory if my two clients cannot live together in Japan, while a foreigner who marries a Japanese person of the opposite sex can acquire (long-term) resident status," the plaintiffs' lawyer Masako Suzuki said.
According to the suit, the couple have been together for around 15 years and married in 2015 following the legalization of same-sex marriage by the U.S. Supreme Court across all 50 states. In Japan, such unions are not legally recognized.
High has applied unsuccessfully for a Japanese long-term resident visa five times since 2018. He currently resides in Japan on a temporary visa and argues he could face deportation if the Japanese government refuses to renew it.
The Immigration Services Agency of Japan said it will respond appropriately after examining the details of the suit.
Earlier this year, a Taiwanese man became the first foreign gay partner of a Japanese citizen to be granted special resident status by the Justice Ministry, following the revocation of a deportation order for overstaying his visa.
==Kyodo
source: news.abvs-cbn.com
North Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has apologized for using a gay slur while trying to defend his government against a corruption scandal that has ensnared justice officials.
Zaev said Tuesday he would "not allow a few criminals, a vain journalist and -- I ask the LGBT community to forgive me -- one faggot, to overthrow the government."
He was referring to a gay TV channel owner, Bojan Jovanovski, at the heart of the corruption case transfixing the public.
Zaev later apologized for using the slur on Twitter, in a statement that some found equally offensive.
"I apologize. I used the word as a character trait, not as a sexual affiliation," he wrote, adding that he was "fighting for the rights of the LGBT community as much as possible."
The country's Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Uranija Pirovska, responded saying: "We are disappointed.
"Statements like this can spark more violence towards the LGBT community."
Journalist Meri Jordanovska said the apology was "even more insulting for the LGBT community."
Zaev had just returned from vacation to battle a growing controversy at home over the corruption case.
The scandal erupted in July when Jovanovski and an associate were arrested and accused of bribing a wealthy businessman, Orce Kamcev, who is a suspect in a separate money-laundering case.
The pair allegedly offered to reduce the suspect's jail time through their connections with the special prosecutor in charge of the case.
A right-wing Italian newspaper has been publishing recordings of the apparent bribe negotiations -- including one with the voice of the head special prosecutor, Katic Janeva, suggesting she was involved.
Janeva, who resigned in July, has confirmed the recording is genuine but claims the conversation was innocent.
The scandal has delivered a huge blow to the crime-fighting office that was set up during a 2015 political crisis to investigate crimes linked to the former administration.
It threatens to blight North Macedonia's record at a sensitive moment, with the country hoping the EU will greenlight a bid to open accession talks in October.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WARSAW - Poland's October general election is shaping up to be dominated neither by the economy nor politics as the devout Catholic country goes to war over LGBT rights, denounced by the governing conservatives and an archbishop as a "threat" to their way of life.
Homosexuality became the hottest electoral issue after PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski condemned gay rights as a "threat" in April and put the issue high on his party's campaign agenda.
The leftist opposition has seized recent sparring over LGBT as an opportunity to slam the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party for its close alliance with the influential Catholic Church.
"For the PiS, it's political fuel. It allows the party to reaffirm its political identity, its attachment to traditional values in the face of the wave of Westernization," political analyst Stanislaw Mocek told AFP.
"But the other side has also found a political weapon there, in the form of defending minority rights."
Poland remains staunchly Catholic and conservatives are increasingly campaigning against LGBT, or gender "ideology" which they believe threatens traditional family values.
In May, a woman put up posters of the Virgin Mary with a rainbow halo, prompting police to detain her for "desecration".
Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski tweeted: "All that nonsense about freedom and 'tolerance' doesn't give ANYONE the right to insult the faithful's beliefs."
In July, a court ordered news magazine Gazeta Polska to halt the distribution of anti-gay stickers reading "This is an LGBT-free zone".
The caption picked up on a trend at local government level where PiS allies have declared themselves "free of LGBT ideology".
Also last month, weekend violence marred the first gay pride parade in the eastern Polish city of Bialystok where football hooligans, some with far-right sympathies, attacked marchers and police.
The incident sparked a series of protests with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki condemning the violence but failing to speak out against the anti-LGBT campaign.
'Rainbow plague'
This month, Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski added fuel to the fire when he used a sermon to warn against the LGBT movement.
"The red plague no longer runs on our land," the clergyman said, referring to communism.
"But a new plague has emerged, neo-Marxist, that wants to seize our souls, hearts and spirits. A plague that is not red but rainbow."
The uproar was immediate: Poles took to the streets in Warsaw and the southern city of Krakow, brandishing rainbow flags and shouting "Shame!" and "Resign!".
YouTube initially blocked a recording of the sermon, then reinstated it.
A member of the Dominican religious order, Pawel Guzynski, urged Poles to write letters calling for the archbishop's resignation.
Other faithful took to the airwaves of the conservative Catholic station Radio Maryja to call for letters to be sent to the Vatican defending Jedraszewski.
Another episode in the LGBT battle looks set to take place at Saturday's gay pride parade in the central city of Plock, with members of the far-right planning to protest.
Around 50 residents sent the mayor a letter asking him to withdraw his patronage of the event.
'Ideological campaign'
Conservative Catholics believe Poland is the target of an "ideological campaign" by LGBT circles, backed and financed by international organizations such as the ILGA-Europe rights groups' network.
The argument was notably made by Marcin Przeciszewski, the head of Poland's KAI Catholic information agency.
In support, he cited the anti-discrimination "LGBT+ declaration" adopted by Warsaw city hall in February, as well as the conclusions of a congress that united dozens of activist groups in the Polish capital in March.
Przeciszewski added that legislation has been drafted in favor of civil unions and gay marriage, though such texts have no chance of a green light from the current PiS-controlled parliament.
For Mocek, the debate touches on the nature of democracy.
"According to a traditional definition of democracy, the majority governs and must protect the rights of the minority," he said.
"But for the PiS, since the majority governs, it has the right to impose its will, and that's something that could lead to an attack on minority values."
Campaigning on a platform of generous social spending, PiS appears on track to win a second consecutive term in the election, according to recent opinion polls.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
When LGBT activist Yelena Grigoryeva found her name on a hit list of a "gay-hunting" group, she did not appear to take the threat seriously.
The group called itself "Pila", meaning "saw", after the series of Hollywood horror films of the same name, in which a serial killer plays games with his victims.
Pila promised "very dangerous and cruel little gifts" to a number of Russia's gay activists.
"That's just a threat," Grigoryeva wrote on Facebook early last month, posting a screen grab of the group's website on her page.
"This is not how crimes are committed."
On July 21, her body was found in bushes close to her home in Saint Petersburg, with at least eight stab wounds to her face and back. She was 41.
The murder has horrified Russia's LGBT community, even though there seems to be no firm evidence linking Pila directly to Grigoryeva's fatal stabbing.
"I do not know who these people are, but it's significant that people who think this way live among us," said activist Mikhail Tumasov, who has also received threats from Pila.
"Many people would like to do in reality what Pila is threatening us with. The idea has emerged that killing people over their sexual orientation is not just normal, but noble," he told AFP.
Russia's gays and lesbians are no strangers to violence, hate crimes and even homophobic murders.
But a vigilante group seeking to turn violence against LGBT people into a game and encouraging Russians to hunt them down for sport plumbs new lows, campaigners say.
Activists said the Pila website had been around for about a year, posting names and pictures of their targets and promising "awards" for attacks on them.
- 'Start protecting citizens' -
Prominent activist Igor Kochetkov accused authorities of doing little to stop it as he urged police to probe the website and the death threats against Grigoryeva.
"Dear police and other law enforcement agencies. It's time to get to work!" Kochetkov, whose name was also on the hit list, said in a recent video address.
"Start protecting all citizens! And if you believe that people like us should not be protected find yourselves a different job."
Pila's website has only recently been blocked, as have its channels on the popular encrypted messaging app Telegram.
But Pila has promised "to play until the end", despite the ban.
Late last month, investigators arrested a man suspected of killing Grigoryeva, suggesting the attack was the result of a personal dispute.
Then they said they had taken the wrong man and detained a new suspect.
But the investigators made no mention of the homophobic threats against the activist, implying she was killed by a drinking companion.
Separately, Russia's Anti-Extremism Center said it could not conduct a probe into Pila because its website had been blocked.
LGBT activists accuse authorities of refusing to properly investigate Grigoryeva's murder and the homophobic group.
They say Pila may not be made up of cold-bloodied killers, but that its main goal was to further terrorise Russia's beleaguered gay community.
"Pila is dangerous because it sows hatred. It inspires people to commit real crimes," said Alla Chikinda, spokeswoman for an LGBT support center in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
The center, too, has received threats from Pila, which called for it to be shut down.
"You will be the next victims of our game if you don't comply with our conditions," the group warned in a letter.
The Yekaterinburg center has now installed video cameras and complained to the police.
- 'Feeling of impunity' -
Even though Russia decriminalized homosexuality in 1993, it remains a deeply homophobic society.
A rise in violence against gays has been seen since 2013, when Russia passed a law banning gay "propaganda" among minors.
At a G20 summit in Japan in June, President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia respected gay rights, but also made fun of gender identity.
"Transformers, trans... I don't even understand what this is," he said.
In July, Russia opened an unprecedented criminal case accusing officials of negligence for allowing a gay couple to adopt two children.
Activists say it should come as no surprise that groups like Pila did not fear punishment.
"They enjoy a feeling of impunity," said Vitaly Bespalov, editor at a gay online portal and one of the targets.
"They know they will face nothing for it."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
