Some 90% of gay men in the Asia-Pacific region are denied access to HIV/Aids help because of discriminatory laws in many states, a UN-backed report says.

Almost half the region's countries criminalise gay male sex and the report says this is worsening a situation in which infection rates are climbing.

Repressive laws "often take on the force of vigilantism", it argues.

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Love is an article of faith for Christian denominations--though for some that is true only until someone makes a show of the "wrong" kind of love.

Such was the case when a UK lesbian couple was forced out of an Anglican church in Dorset, England, for, they said, having held hands during services. The Bournemouth edition of the Daily Echo reported on May 14 that parish members at St. Nicholas Anglican church, located in the Dorset village of Corfe Mullen, accused Kersten Pegden and Nina Laure of "overtly sexual" conduct because the two held hands in church. No similar complaints were lodged against heterosexual couples for the same public displays during church services, however.

The article noted that Pegden had come out relatively recently, having been attending St. Nicholas for four years but only having let it be known that she was a lesbian last year. Pegden and Laure have been a couple since last autumn; they are engaged to be joined in a civil union, which, in Britain, carries the same rights and protections as marriage.

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Read the complete article at: http://bit.ly/a0EzTS

When it was first reported that Dale Mcalpine, a Christian street preacher in Britain, was arrested for saying that homosexuality is a sin, you know it was only a matter of time before the Religious Right in the US started using this incident to work up fears about how this is exactly what gays want to do to Christians here in America.

Case in point:

Liberty Counsel Cultural Affairs Analyst Matt Barber raised the warning that such cases will be seen more and more in America, too.

"We know that what's happening in Europe and what's happening in Canada offers us a window into the future of what will happen here in the United States," he said. "The hate crimes laws and employment sexual orientation laws such as ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act here in the United States, have been the precursor to the more oppressive hate speech laws," Barber explained.

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Read the complete article at: http://bit.ly/cR2nN7

An Austrian Cardinal--the head of the Catholic faith in that country--has said that his church ought to respect long-term, committed relationships between people of the same gender.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn made the comment along with several other remarks sure to fire up conservative Catholics, including an assertion that the church needs to reconsider its opposition to divorced people remarrying. Schönborn’s comments were reported on by Catholic British publication The Tablet on May 8.

Read the complete article at EdgeOnTheNet.com: http://bit.ly/9s6HQe