Monday, March 2, 2009

Beijing's 'happy couples' launch campaign for same-sex marriages

Post found on Gay News Blog

With her bouquet of roses and fluffy white dress, Han Xincheng looked the epitome of the glamorous modern Chinese bride. But, although her parents had been pressing her to marry, the photographs were not what they might have expected: she is gazing adoringly at another woman, surrounded by onlookers.

The series of "wedding pictures" staged by lesbians and gay men in the heart of Beijing might not raise eyebrows any longer in most western countries, but they are evidence that attitudes are finally changing in a country where gay sex was illegal until 1997 and homosexuality classified as a mental illness until four years later.

Read more at guardian.co.uk

Poland's GLBT Media Owners Meet To Discuss Working Together (LMGTS: LetMeGetThiStraight)

Post found on Topix

At the invitation of Slawka Starost an unprecedented event in the history of Polish media took place on 22 February 2007 in Warsaw. As the saying goes, nothing unites bitter foes like a common enemy. This inckudes external and internal foces. GayLife has been threatened with a lawsuit by a gay association because of its reporting in mismangement of donated funds. Thus this meeting could be a salvo fired across the bows of certain assocaitions and individuals who are not working for the common good of the Polish GLBT - Bravo.

Read more at www.letmegetthisstraight.com

Scottish lesbian couple win right to fertility treatment after legal threat

Post found on Topix

Two lesbians have won the right to IVF treatment to help them have a baby after threatening to sue health chiefs. They used controversial new equality laws to launch their case in Scotland's highest civil court yesterday, backed by a government watchdog which believes they suffered 'indirect discrimination'.

Until now, the National Health Service has offered IVF treatment only when a couple cannot conceive because one partner is infertile. But this, the women said, constitutes 'indirect discrimination' against gay couples who cannot conceive naturally.

Read more at www.proudparenting.com