Recent developments abroad

11/26/09 StarObserver.com:

Gay marriage advocates’ hopes were deflated today [in Australia] with the long-awaited Committee of Inquiry into the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill report recommending against same-sex marriage. “The Committee recommends that the Bill not be passed,” the report stated.

11/25/09 U.K. PinkNews:

Warren McGaw and Chris Rumble have become the first Australian gay couple to have their civil partnership ceremony legally recognised.The pair, who have been together for nearly 20 years, held their ceremony yesterday afternoon at the Old Parliament House rose gardens in Canberra. They are the first to take advantage of new legislation passed in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) earlier this month. However, the right may not last for long as prime minister Kevin Rudd has said he will overturn the law.

11/25/09 Irish Catholic:

[T]he Civil Partnership Bill [in Ireland] will give same-sex couples all of the rights of married couples except the right to adopt a child as a couple. Homosexuals can already adopt as single people.

11/25/09 JURIST Paper Chase:

Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle are the first heterosexual couple to apply for a civil partnership in the UK, where same-sex couples may obtain legal recognition with rights akin to those of a married couple. They allege that the denial constitutes discrimination based on sexual orientation, and that such a distinction amounts to segregation in matrimonial law. The human rights and gay rights activist Peter Tatchell is supporting [press release] the couple in their challenge and has decried the difference in application of the laws experienced by heterosexual and homosexual couples.

Among other reasons for seeking civil parternship, Freeman and Doyle say that "that we object to the way same-sex couples are prohibited from getting married."

11/25/09 Guardian:

Explaining why he supports the U.K. couple's civill partnership application, Peter Tatchell says,

There should be no legal discrimination. The ban on same-sex civil marriage and on opposite-sex civil partnerships is segregationist. It is one law for straight couples and another law for gay partners. Two wrongs don't make a right.

11/24/09 AP:

MEXICO CITY — A lawmaker in Mexico's capital has proposed changing the city's civil code to allow gay marriages.

11/23/09 BayWindows.com:

Two men were granted a marriage license in Argentina’s capital on Monday, breaking ground in a country and region where laws ban gay marriage.