Argentina extends
pensions to
gay couples
Argentina extended its pension system to cover same-sex couples Aug. 18.
When a couple has lived together for five years prior to one of the individuals’ deaths, the surviving partner will qualify.
The move, the first gay-rights measure implemented nationwide, came in the form of a decree from the federal government.
Activists plan to continue pushing for a national civil-union law like the ones already in place in several Argentine cities.
A bill legalizing same-sex marriage was informally presented to Argentina’s Congress in May by the head of the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism.
The bill now sits with the Ministry of Justice, Security and Human Rights, which likely will arrange for it to be formally introduced into Congress by the executive branch.
Court: Germans who
change their sex
can remain married
Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court struck down a law July 24 that required married postoperative transsexuals to get divorced before their new gender could be legally recognized.
The court said the law is unconstitutional, cannot be enforced, and must be changed by August 2009.
The ruling came in the case of a 79-year-old individual who had a sex-change operation to become female in 2002.
The woman’s wife also did not want to get divorced.
Six hundred march in Mumbai
Some 600 people took part in the Queer Freedom March Aug. 16 in Mumbai (Bombay), India.
The date, one day after Indian Independence Day, was chosen ‘to say that it’s time for us to get our freedom from being treated as criminals under Indian law,’ said Vikram Doctor, one of the organizers.
Marchers set off from August Kranti Maidan, a park in South Mumbai where in August 1942 Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi launched the Quit India movement, the call for the British to leave the country once and for all.
‘Today we invoke the father of our nation’s spirit and call on the British government to apologize for the legacy of hatred they left us in the form of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code,’ gay activist Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil said before the parade stepped off.
‘Through this law, the idea of treating homosexuals as criminals was imposed by the colonial government on the more tolerant traditions of India. Through laws like Section 377, the British imposed Victorian ideas of morality that have come back to haunt us in the form of rising HIV rates among queer men who are forced to have sex in secret and unsafely, in the form of persecution of hijras (eunuchs) who are treated as unnatural despite their ancient history in India, and in the form of the suppression of the lives of women who love women.’
Section 377 bans gay sex under penalty of up to 10 years in prison. An ongoing court case could see the law ‘read down’ so it no longer applies to consensual sex between adults.
British spy agency
seeks out members
Britain’s domestic spy agency, MI5, hopes to recruit more gay members and encourage current agents to come out.
The agency has hired top gay lobby group Stonewall to help make it happen.
‘I am optimistic that in 10 to 15 years (MI5’s) employment profile will look very much like modern Britain,’ said Stonewall head Ben Summerskill. ‘There is no reason why there shouldn’t be a lesbian or gay director-general.’
—Assistance: Bill Kelley