BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — Connecticut's governor has nominated an openly gay man to serve as a jurist on the state's Supreme Court, the CT Mirror reports.

"The notion that one day I might sit as a member of that court is something I couldn't have imagined," says Andrew J McDonald, who is set to become the court's first out gay justice. According to the Mirror, McDonald has been a close confidant of Governor Dannel P Malloy, who had promised, upon taking office two years ago, to make the courts as diverse as Connecticut's society.

Before he became a legislator, McDonald was a city attorney in Stamford when Malloy was mayor. He ran for state senator as an openly gay politician in 2002 and was co-chairman of the judiciary committee in 2005, when the legislature passed a civil unions law that gave many of the same rights to same-sex couples as marriage, a right the state Supreme Court gave gay couples in 2008, the Mirror adds.

Like Malloy, McDonald was "a supporter in the legislature of gay marriage, transgender rights and the abolition of the death penalty."

McDonald's selection was praised by Republican senators. "While Andrew and I have had considerable political differences over the years, I have always respected his commitment to public service and the law," Senate Minority Leader John McKinney is quoted as saying. "He is qualified and I am confident he will uphold the state constitution and carry out his responsibilities as a Supreme Court Justice with the highest degree of impartiality and integrity." 

Landing image: CT Mirror

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — The offices of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) have been robbed and vandalized, Identity Kenya reports.

Stolen items include computers, a gas cooker, an audio recorder and a water dispenser, according to the report.

Gay rights campaigner Frank Mugisha says the incident poses risks to the country's gay community. "'Since I got the news, I am worried what those who stole will get from the information on the computers," he told Identity Kenya.

While police are said to be investigating the incident, no arrests have yet been made. The robbery occurred just two weeks after parliament adjourned before debating the anti-homosexuality bill, which reportedly still includes the death penalty for so-called aggravated homosexuality.

Last July, the offices of another gay organization, Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), were also broken into. Items stolen included a membership list, the report notes. No one has been arrested in connection with that incident, either. Identity Kenya says that four days before that robbery, SMUG offices were also broken into, but someone was present in the building.

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — While an anti-discrimination bill has passed second reading in the Moldovan parliament, concerns are being raised about the adequacy of the protections the legislation extends to sexual minorities.

The bill, which has to pass a third and final reading at a date to be confirmed, sets fines of up to 9,000 Moldovan lei ($750) for workplace discrimination against minorities, including queer people, Pink News reports. It also indicates that discrimination that leads to death or suicide could lead to a sentence of up to six years in jail, according to the report. But there is uncertainty about whether the prison sentence also applies to cases of discrimination against queer people. 

Moldovan Orthodox Christians are opposed to the measure, saying it endorses sodomy, Pink News adds. 

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA-Europe) has expressed misgivings about the measure's vague wording, saying it could lead to confusion about the extent of the legal protections it provides to people who face discrimination based on their real or perceived sexual orientation.

ILGA-Europe’s executive director Evelyne Paradis says that by treating grounds of discrimination differently, the Moldovan law "in effect institutes a hierarchy of rights."

"At a time when city councils are adopting proclamations to prohibit so called propaganda of 'non-traditional sexual orientations,' we worry that this lack of legal clarity around the ground of sexual orientation will continue to leave the LGBT community in a vulnerable position and considerably limit their legal protection," Paradis adds.

Pink News also points out that Moldova lies between Ukraine and Romania, and there has been speculation that it could follow Russia's and Ukraine's lead in pushing for anti-gay gag laws.

 

Landing image: Lonely Planet

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — Blog site Blabbeando is reporting that new regulations that came into effect Dec 25 in Mexico remove a two-decade ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men.

Previously, health regulations explicitly banned gay and bisexual men from donating blood based on their "practices" and their "increased probability of acquiring HIV or hepatitis infection," according to the report. The new regulations instead ban blood donations from people with HIV or hepatitis and their partners and people who engage in "risky sexual practices," regardless of their sexual identity.

Risky sexual practices are defined as those that may include "contact or exchange of blood, sexual secretions or other bodily secretions between someone who might have a transmittable disease and areas of another person's body through which an infectious agent might be able to penetrate." 

"From now on, medical/scientific criteria will be used to identify pathogens in the blood and the focus will be turned to risky behaviors rather than social groups," Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED) says in a statement hailing the changes.

"In making these discriminatory distinctions, the [previous] norm explicitly violated the prohibition against discrimination present in the Constitution and the Federal Law to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination, as well as Article 24 of the American Convention on Human Rights and Article 26 of the International Civil and Political Rights Treaty, among other international instruments of law, which establish that every person is equal before the law regardless of any condition."

Britain lifted its lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men in November last year. A review by the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (Sabto) led to the decision that men who have not had homosexual sex within the past year will be able to donate if they meet certain other criteria, according to The Guardian, which says the recommendation was accepted by the health ministers in England, Scotland and Wales. But the Department of Health adds that any man who has had anal or oral sex with another man in the past 12 months, with or without a condom, will still not be eligible to donate blood.

The Canadian Blood Services (CBS) and its counterpart, Héma-Québec, have committed only to a review of the current ban in Canada. A November 2011 report in Xtra noted that the CBS board of directors had approved a motion to reexamine its policy to reduce the ban to between five and 10 years. 

Since 1983, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines have disqualified men who have ever had sex with men from donating blood. An Atlantic feature notes, however, that the policy has been "heavily criticized recently for misrepresenting 21st century scientific realities; and the American Red Cross, alongside senators, universities and other organizations, have called for an updated policy that reflects the realities of modern science and technology." 

According to a South Florida Gay News report, Argentina's Chamber of Deputies passed a bill that would make it legal for gay and lesbians to donate blood. The measure, which is scheduled for debate in the Senate in 2013, would eliminate certain questions used by clinics and hospitals that require potential blood donors to divulge their sexual orientation, Gay Star News says. "One of the questions asks the potential donor if they've had sexual relations with someone of the same sex in the past year; if the answer is affirmative, the donor is not permitted to continue with the donating process."

In addition to the news about the lifting of the gay blood ban, Mexico also recently made headlines when its Supreme Court delivered a unanimous Dec 5 ruling in favour of three gay couples seeking to marry in the state of Oaxaca, potentially opening the door for same-sex couples to marry nationwide.

Landing image: Virtual Mexico

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — The archbishop of Wales, who says the UK government's decision to make it illegal for the church to perform same-sex marriages, was reportedly going to discuss dropping the ban with the government.

"I am not sure we want that kind of protection which makes us out to be very unwelcoming and homophobic," Gay Star News (GSN) reports Archbishop of Wales Barry Morgan as saying. "It is not that I am advocating that the Church in Wales is right to perform gay marriages, but that decision needs to be made by the Church in Wales. It is not for the state to decide for us."

The British government announced Dec 11 that it will introduce a bill next year to legalize gay marriage but would make it unlawful for the Church of England and the Church in Wales to perform same-sex ceremonies.

Immediately following the government's announcement, Morgan said the church had not asked for the so-called quadruple lock of measures to be put in place, calling it "a step too far."

On the BBC's The World at One program Dec 14, the archbishop adds that it's not a position he and fellow bishops are "terribly happy with."  

"The government probably thought if we didn't have a law making it illegal for the Church in Wales to conduct gay marriage, then there could be an appeal to the court of human rights," he says. "But all that was done without any consultation at all. It came as a total shock to us, and I think some of us would want to argue that there's got to be a way around this legally without making it a criminal act to hold such marriages in church, if we so wish."

According to a Dec 14 BBC report, a Church of England spokesperson indicated that the church wasn't properly consulted. "What is clear is that the amount of detail given by officials from the [Department for Culture, Media and Sport] certainly wasn't the level of detail revealed on the floor of the House. I think that's surprising, at the very least.

"There is this sense of the government slightly making it up on the hoof. This is an important and serious issue and a complex area of law. Doing all this on the hoof is absurd," the spokesperson adds.

Gay Star News says a government spokesperson denies there wasn't consultation with the church, noting that government officials met with the Church of England "at a very senior level."  

"The church made clear to us its wish to see legal provisions which would ensure that their position on not conducting same-sex marriages could continue," the spokesperson told Gay Star News, adding that "discussions with the church were quite specific about the quad lock."

The bill is likely to have enough support in parliament to become law, including from members of Prime Minister David Cameron's cabinet and most lawmakers, in both the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties.