World News

BRASILIA, Brazil -- A Brazilian congressional human rights committee on Thursday approved legislation that would allow psychologists to treat homosexuality as a disorder or pathology. [ Read more → ]

MOSCOW -- Russia is on its way to formally prohibiting all adoption by same-sex couples and also banning the adoption of Russian children by single people or unmarried couples from countries that allow same-sex marriage. [ Read more → ]

WARSAW -- Poland's first openly gay Member of Parliament reported that he was attacked after attending Warsaw's annual pride event on Saturday. [ Read more → ]

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe on Sunday pledged to strengthen penalties against gays and lesbians if his Zanu PF party wins the upcoming elections. [ Read more → ]

ZAGREB, Croatia — Several thousand people held a gay pride march Saturday in Croatia, where conservatives backed by the influential Catholic Church want to make same sex marriage illegal, while neighboring Slovenia's president led a similar march in his country's capital. [ Read more → ]

HAMILTON, Bermuda -- Legislators in Bermuda have approved a bill that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. [ Read more → ]

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis waded diplomatically into the gay marriage debate Friday, telling the Archbishop of Canterbury he wants to work together to promote family values "based on marriage." [ Read more → ]

OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada -- A bill that would add gender identity to the list of classes protected from discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act cleared a Senate committee on Monday. [ Read more → ]

ARCANGUES, France -- The mayor of Arcangues, a small city in southwestern France, said he refuses to officiate unions between gay couples despite passage of a national legalizing same-sex marriage. [ Read more → ]

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis lamented that a "gay lobby" was at work at the Vatican in private remarks to the leadership of a key Latin American church group - a stunning acknowledgment that appears to confirm earlier reports about corruption and dysfunction in the Holy See. [ Read more → ]

MOSCOW — A bill that stigmatizes Russia's gay community and bans the distribution of information about homosexuality to children was overwhelmingly approved by the lower house of parliament Tuesday. [ Read more → ]

PARIS -- French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Saturday directed Interior Minister Manuel Valls to take immediate steps to dissolve the extreme right group known as Revolutionary Nationalist Youth, believed to have neo-nazi ties. [ Read more → ]

PARIS -- Protesters, upset by recent legislation in France allowing for same-sex marriages, disrupted the French Open tennis final on Sunday between Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer. [ Read more → ]

EDMONTON, Alberta -- In a ceremony attended by senior military officers and civilian members of the LGBT community, the rainbow pride flag was raised at Canadian Forces Base Edmonton, and will remain this week to coincide with Edmonton's LGBT Pride Festival. [ Read more → ]

LONDON -- Britain's Prince Harry is being praised on recently revealed news that that he intervened and prevented a planned attack on a gay soldier in 2008. [ Read more → ]

JERUSALEM — Israeli police say the killing of two people at a gay youth center in Tel Aviv four years ago is no longer being treated as a hate crime. [ Read more → ]

PARIS -- A gay rights activist has been killed by a group of skinheads in the heart of Paris' shopping district, officials said Thursday, in an attack that has raised fears of increased far-right violence. [ Read more → ]

BERLIN -- Gay rights campaigners won a victory over the German government Thursday as the country's top court ruled that same-sex couples in civil unions should receive the same tax benefits as heterosexual married couples. [ Read more → ]

LONDON -- The Church of England on Wednesday signaled it would no longer fight against the government's plans to legalize same-sex marriage in England and Wales. [ Read more → ]

MELBOURNE -- The world's largest study on the welfare of children of same-sex parents, currently under way at Melbourne University in Australia, found that children of gay and lesbian are doing as well as, or better than, children of heterosexual parent in a number of key health indicators. [ Read more → ]