(365 Gay) Italian news-magazine Panorama reportedly has footage of three Catholic priests frequenting several gay nightclubs and engaged in casual sex. According to the Daily Mail , an undercover reporter for Panorama used hidden cameras to film the priests in the act. In the article which accompanies the video, the reporter details how he, along with a “gay accomplice,” “gate crashed the wild nights of a number of priests in Rome who live a surprising double life.” In a preview of the article, Panorama said, “By day they are regular priests, complete with dog collar, but, at night it’s off with the cassock as they take their place as perfectly integrated members of the Italian capital’s gay scene.” News of the footage was leaked in an email Friday and is expected to be available to the public shortly.
(Examiner) About a thousand marchers in Slovakia’s first Gay Pride parade in Bratislava came under attack by several Neo-Nazi skinheads on Saturday, which thwarted the event, despite the presence of approximately 200 police to protect the marchers. According …
(GLAAD) Reuters and several other media outlets are reporting that Iceland has unanimously passed marriage equality. Lawmakers there cast a 49-0 vote with 14 abstaining. The bill now goes to President Olafur Ragnar Crimsson, who is expected to sign it into law.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A United Nations committee that decides which nongovernmental organizations can be accredited to the world body moved on Thursday to keep out the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
(Examiner) One-half of the Malawian couple who were imprisoned for marrying and then pardoned last week by President Bingu wa Mutharika is missing, according to the Zambia Watchdog. Tiwonge Chimbalanga, known affectionately by his friends and family as &…
(Gay Politics) At 23, Ian Campbell is Britain’s youngest mayor, and as an openly gay man he’s among a growing group of out mayors worldwide, reports EDGE Boston. Campbell is mayor of Retford, England, a town of 20,000 located about 150 miles north of London. According to the Guardian newspaper: Campbell rose to prominence as a gay rights activist after being thrown out of his family home for coming out.
(The Guardian) President pardons pair ‘on humanitarian grounds’ after meeting UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon A gay couple sentenced to serve 14 years in jail in Malawi have been pardoned and released after their country’s president met the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, were tried and found guilty of sodomy and indecency earlier this month in a move that sparked international condemnation. But after talking with Ban today, Malawi’s president, Bingu wa Mutharika, announced the pair would be freed.
(BBC News) Two campaigners for gay rights in Zimbabwe are freed after spending six days in custody, their lawyers say.
(BBC News) A concert by the openly gay British singer Elton John is to go ahead in Morocco despite calls by Islamists for him to be banned.
(The Guardian) Olusegun Obasanjo made the remarks in support of last week’s sentencing of a gay couple in Malawi. An African statesman who shares a political platform with Kofi Annan, Tony Blair and Bob Geldof has condemned homosexuality as an “abomination”, dismissing individuals’ right to privacy with the riposte: “You want to make love to a horse?” Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, indicated his support for the sentencing last week of a gay couple in Malawi to 14 years in prison with hard labour, insisting that countries have the right to enforce their own laws. The remarks, coming at a time of huge sensitivity around gay rights in Africa, have the potential to embarrass Obasanjo’s colleagues on the Africa Progress Panel, a respected body that monitors development across the continent. Chaired by Annan, its members include Blair, Geldof, economist Muhammad Yunus and Graca Machel, the women’s and children’s rights activist and wife of Nelson Mandela.
