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Today’s Top Headlines

Australian State Votes For Gay Adoptions
FBI Says Marines Won’t Be Charged with Hate Crime
Archbishop’s Aide Calls Britain a ‘Hedonistic Wasteland’
Gays’ Kids Do As Well As Others In School

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Researchers using U.S. Census Bureau data say they found children of same-sex parents do nearly as well in school as children in heterosexual households. Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld used census data from 2000 and found nearly 7 percent of children raised by heterosexual married couples were held back a grade and about 9.5 percent of children living with same-sex partners repeated a grade. However, the difference between the two groups of parents disappears after factoring in that the heterosexual couples were slightly more educated and wealthier than most gay parents, Rosenfeld says.

Read the full story from UPI.

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster has distanced himself from an aide who said gay rights and the commercialisation of sex had turned Britain into a “selfish, hedonistic wasteland” and “the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death”. The comments from Edmund Adamus, director of pastoral affairs at the diocese of Westminster and an adviser to the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, have angered gay rights and secularists groups and provoked embarrassment among the Catholic hierarchy weeks before the pope visits Britain. Senior figures, including Lord Patten of Barnes, have been keen to stress that the UK, while secular, is not anti-Catholic and that the pope is not flying into hostile territory.

Read the full story from the Guardian.

Two U.S. Marines accused of knocking a gay Savannah man unconscious will face only misdemeanor charges in the attack after the Justice Department declined to prosecute them for hate crimes, authorities said Wednesday. Savannah-Chatham County police arrested the Marines on June 12 after finding 27-year-old Kieran Daly unconscious on a downtown sidewalk. Witnesses said the Marines got upset because they thought Daly winked at them and attacked him as he tried to walk away. The FBI launched a preliminary investigation into whether the attack warranted charges as a federal hate crime. Stephen Emmett, spokesman for the FBI in Atlanta, said Wednesday the Justice Department opted against pursuing hate-crime charges after reviewing the case. “The matter now rests with local authorities,” Emmett said.

Read the full story from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Australia’s most populous State of New South Wales has decided in favor of adoption by same-sex couples bringing them on par with their heterosexual counterparts, reports said on Thursday. The State Parliament’s Lower House voted narrowly 46-44 to drop a few clauses in the Adoption Bill which discriminated against gays and lesbians. Members were allowed to vote based on their conscience. With the Bill clearing the hurdle, New South Wales has become Australia’s third State after Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory to allow gay adoption.

Read the full story from RTT.

 

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Today’s Top Headlines

British Foreign Secretary Denies Gay Relationship
Scandinavian Airline to Host First Mile-High Gay Wedding
Fidel Castro Takes Blame for Persecution of Gays
Tasmania Moves to Recognize Same-Sex Unions

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U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague denied having a gay affair with an adviser and said difficulties conceiving children with his wife Ffion may be behind rumors that he’d had an “improper relationship” with the aide. Hague, 49, said Christopher Myers, a special adviser who resigned from his job today, was “easily qualified” for the role and that allegations that he was appointed because they were having a relationship were “utterly false.” Hague said he regretted sharing hotel rooms with the adviser during this year’s election campaign.

Read the full story from Bloomberg.

Scandinavian airline SAS said Wednesday it plans to host the first-ever in-flight gay wedding in December, and is searching for a suitable couple to walk down the airplane aisle. “It will be a very traditional wedding,” SAS spokesman Anders Lindstroem told AFP. “There will be wedding cake and dancing in the aisles.” SAS is accepting entries from gay couples who wanted to celebrate their nuptials mid-flight from Stockholm to New York on December 6, with the winning entry will be chosen by an online vote.

Read the full story from AFP.

Fidel Castro has said that he is ultimately responsible for the persecution suffered by homosexuals in Cuba after the revolution of 1959. The former president told the Mexican newspaper La Jornada that there were moments of great injustice against the gay community. “If someone is responsible, it’s me,” he said. In the 1960s and 70s, many homosexuals in Cuba were fired, imprisoned or sent to “re-education camps”.

Read the full story from the BBC.

Tasmania’s Lower House of Parliament has approved laws recognising same-sex marriages and civil unions registered in other states or countries. Only three of the 25 Members of the House of Assembly – Liberals Rene Hidding, Michael Ferguson and Jacqui Petrusma – voted against the amendment to the Relationships Act. Attorney-General Lara Giddings says the changes will remove discrimination for same-sex couples in registered relationships.

Read the full story from ABC News.

 

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Today’s Top Headlines

Texas Appeals Court Rejects Gay Divorce Ruling
Mexico City Woos Same-Sex Honeymooners
Omaha Paper to Print Same-Sex Wedding Announcements

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A state appeals court in Dallas has rejected a lower court’s decision that two gay men married in Massachusetts had the right to divorce in Texas. In October 2009, state District Judge Tena Callahan ruled that the men could legally end their marriage and that the state’s prohibition of same-sex marriage violates the federal constitutional right to equal protection. But today the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas reversed that decision with instructions to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.

Read the full story from the Dallas Morning News.

As more governments approve same-sex marriage laws, officials here are hoping to attract a growing part of the tourism market: gay honeymoons. The first couple to wed under Argentina’s recent law allowing same-sex marriages nationwide arrives in Mexico this week on an all-expenses-paid trip — part of a new push by the government in Mexico City, Mexico to woo gay travelers. “We hope that many same-sex couples who get married around the world spend their honeymoons here,” says Alejandro Rojas, the city’s tourism secretary.

Read the full story from CNN.

The Omaha World-Herald, under fire from gay rights advocates who led an Internet-based campaign to protest the paper’s policy to not run same-sex paid wedding announcements, has changed its mind. The paper, Nebraska’s largest, said on Tuesday that it would now print all wedding and engagement announcements regardless of the couple’s gender. It said it would continue a policy of running announcements only for legal marriages — not civil unions or commitment ceremonies. In a statement published Tuesday, the paper’s publisher seemed taken aback at the protest the initial policy provoked from gay rights supporters.

Read the full story from the New York Times.

 

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Today’s Top Headlines

Lutherans Split Over Gay Pastors, Bible Beliefs
Church Censures Minister After Same-Sex Marriages
Conservative UK Politician Reveals He is Gay
Pennsylvania Changes Transgender Rules on Driver’s Licenses

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