Cyprus: Civil unions bringing change

Sixteen couples have entered a civil union so far in Cyprus, while a European study shows there is still room for improvement on LGBT issues and social acceptance.

Eight same-sex couples and eight straight couples have tied the knot since the island’s controversial civil union bill was passed by the House last November, following a heated and protracted debate in the House that caused rifts within political parties.

During a seminar on Monday, Cyprus Ombudsman’s office representative Aristos Tsiartas said that legislation legalising same-sex civil unions as well as criminalising hate speech against LGBT people is the biggest step forward in improving human rights.

“The civil union law not only challenges the legal and institutional framework of the country, but it also challenges our conscience, prejudice, and stereotypes,” Tsiartas said. Read more via in Cyprus

Colombia: High court formally legalizes same-sex marriage

Colombia’s highest court on Thursday formally extended marriage rights to same-sex couples. Reports indicate the Colombian constitutional court’s 6-3 ruling in a case says the process to obtain a marriage license will become the same for couples of the same- or opposite-sex.

The decision also stipulates that judges and notaries cannot refuse to refuse to marry a gay or lesbian couple because of their religious beliefs. It remains unclear as to whether the ruling — which came in a case brought by six same-sex couples — will immediately go into effect.   Read more via Washington Blade

Faroe Islands: Yes to same-sex marriage

Lagtinget, the Faroese parliament, has proposed to adopt the Danish same-sex marriage legislation this week, but added an exception that gay people are not permitted to wed in churches.

With 19 votes in favour and 14 votes against, Lagtinget agreed to a first reading of a proposal that allows gay couples to have a civil marriage.

“The church has been left out of the proposal, because therwise it wouldn’t have been possible to get the religious parties to vote for it,” Georg L Petersen, the chief editor of the Faroese newspaper Dimmalæting, said according to DR Nyheder. Read more via CPH Post 

Isle of Man: Passes same-sex marriage

The Isle of Man has finally approved same-sex marriage – meaning Northern Ireland is set to be the last place in the Isles without marriage equality. As a crown dependency, the Isle of Man maintains autonomy from the UK on issues including marriage.

It was the last part of these islands to legalise homosexuality in 1992 – but a vote today confirmed it won’t be the last to introduce same-sex marriage.

The Manx Legislative Council today passed its Marriage and Civil Partnership (Amendment) Bill – with six votes in favour and three against. The bill amends marriage laws to allow same-sex couples to tie the knot, as they can in Scotland, England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland. Read more via PinkNews

Norway: Bishop says to avoid same-sex marriage, no more civil weddings

A Norwegian bishop said the country's clergy will no longer officiate at civil weddings, after the predominant Lutheran Church's governing synod voted to conduct gay marriages in Norway.

Bishop Bernt Eidsvig of Oslo told Catholic News Service that he would have to seek permission from the Vatican, but added, "It's clear we must distinguish our own church marriages from others."

"This is a matter of liturgy, so it doesn't necessarily reflect roader change in our society's moral values. But politicians may now get aggressive toward churches who resist these weddings, so the best option is for us to stop conducting marriages on the state's behalf." Read more via Boston Pilot

Australia: Gay CEOs unmoved by church pressure on marriage equality

Fairfax Media reported that the Archdiocese contacted Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce and SBS chief executive Michael Ebeid, urging them to reconsider their public endorsement of same-sex marriage.

Both companies were among hundreds of Australian corporations to pledge their support for the Australian Marriage Equality campaign last year, and both chief executives addressed a high-profile breakfast hosted by the AME in May.

Shortly after the AME campaign was launched, the Archdiocese addressed letters to many of the organisations involved, including Qantas, SBS, Telstra, the Football Federation of Australia and law firm Maurice Blackburn.

"I wonder whether you have questioned whether it is the role of a corporation such as yours to be participating in such an important matter that impacts all of Australian society now and into the future," wrote Sydney Archdiocese business manager Michael Digges. 

Read more via Catholic News

China: Court refuses to allow gay marriage in landmark case

A Chinese judge has rejected a gay couple’s attempt to secure the right to marry in the country’s first same-sex marriage case. Sun Wenlin had sued the civil affairs bureau in the city of Changsha for the right to marry his 37-year-old partner Hu Mingliang, a security guard. In January a court in Changsha agreed to hear their case, which activists said was the first of its kind in China. 

The judge in Changsha announced he was dismissing the case shortly after the three-hour trial hearing had ended.  Shi Fulong, the lawyer representing the couple, claimed the court had provided insufficient grounds for dismissing the case but said gay marriage was destined to become a reality in China in the not-so-distant future: “If the law is unable to provide people with equality and justice, it means the law needs to be changed,” he said. 

Earlier hundreds of LGBT campaigners had gathered outside the court to show their support for the couple’s case. Read more via the Guardian

US: The long, winding road to marriage equality

Excerpted with permission from "Engines of Liberty: The Power of Citizen Activists to Make Constitutional Law,"
The path to marriage equality did not begin, of course, with Evan Wolfson’s Harvard Law School paper. The very fact that Wolfson could conceive of such a paper was itself testament to the efforts of countless gay and lesbian advocates before him, operating in far more difficult circumstances.

A good place to start in assessing the prehistory of the marriage equality movement is the Mattachine Society, one of the first gay organizations in the United States. Founded in Los Angeles in 1950, the Mattachine Society ultimately included chapters around the country, and in the 1950s and 1960s was the nation’s leading gay organization. It took its name from masked critics of ruling monarchs in medieval France. At its inception, the very idea of a gay organization was so radical that the group met only in secret.

The invisibility of the “closet” made mobilizing for lesbian and gay rights all but impossible. Thus, the first strategic step toward achieving equality was, as gay rights scholar and advocate Bill Eskridge  has called it, a “politics of protection.” The aim was to create space for gays and lesbians to come together without fear of official harassment. Read more via Salon

US: Yes, Puerto Rico’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional

A federal appeals court stated unambiguously that Puerto Rico’s ban on same-sex couples’ marriages is unconstitutional, throwing a federal judge off a case after the judge had ruled in March that the ban was still in effect: “The district court’s ruling errs in so many respects that it is hard to know where to begin,” the unsigned opinion from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals stated in harshly criticizing U.S. District Court Judge Juan Pérez-Giménez’ actions in the case.

Pérez-Giménez had ruled in favor of the ban in October 2014, but the 1st Circuit sent the case back to the trial court after the Supreme Court’s June 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges striking down marriage bans nationwide. The appeals court ordered Pérez-Giménez to “further consider” the matter “in light of Obergefell,” adding that the appeals court judges “agree with the parties … that the ban is unconstitutional.”

Nonetheless, in March, Pérez-Giménez upheld the ban for a second time, ruling that the Supreme Court’s ruling does not apply to a territory like Puerto Rico. The appeals court disagreed strongly, stating, “In ruling that the ban is not unconstitutional because the applicable constitutional right does not apply in Puerto Rico, the district court both misconstrued that right and directly contradicted our mandate.”  Read more via Buzzfeed 

Colombia: high court rules in favor of same-sex marriage

Colombia’s highest court has given the green light to gay marriage in the conservative, mostly Catholic country. The magistrates of the constitutional court voted six to three against a proposed ruling that said marriage applied only to unions between men and women and that it was up to the congress and not the court to decide on same-sex marriage.

Magistrate Alberto Rojas, who voted against the proposed ruling and will now write up the majority decision making gay marriage legal, said: “All human beings ... have the fundamental right to be married with no discrimination.” 

 Read more via the Guardian

Australia: Love wins—Marriage equality forum feels the passion

Andrew Bolt derided it as a “leftie love-in” – a Guardian Australia special event on marriage equality featuring political leaders Bill Shorten and Richard Di Natale, and veteran campaigner Rodney Croome.

Why Knot? had all the hallmarks. A progressive panel of speakers, check. Gathered at an inner-city theatre, check. An audience who saw marriage equality as vital to LGBTI people’s dignity, check.

What more was there to learn about a legal change that, according to all the polling evidence, most Australians just want to be done and dusted? As speakers shared their personal anecdotes of wanting recognition for their partnerships, or facing discrimination because they were raised by gay parents, the answer was clear: unRead more via the Guardiantil marriage equality is law, there is still plenty more to say. 

Costa Rica: Where is Costa Rica on gay marriage? International community asks

Costa Rica made international news in 2015 when a family court judge recognized the first same-sex common-law marriage in Central America. Later that same year, Vice President Ana Helena Chacón announced a robust anti-discrimination policy for public sector workers employed by the executive branch. But since then, a bill to legalize same-sex marriage here has stalled under the weight of hundreds of amendments tacked on by evangelical lawmakers.

The Ombudsman’s Office, with assistance from the Dutch Embassy, invited Human Rights Watch’s LGBT Advocacy Director Boris Dittrich to visit Costa Rica in March to assess the situation. Here he met with government officials and members of the LGBT community.  Read more via Tico Times