International Gaze

The Ugandan parliamentarian behind an anti-gay bill that attracted worldwide condemnation said the most controversial part of the legislation – the death penalty provision – is likely to be dropped from the bill.

David Bahati said if the parliament committee the bill currently sits before recommends that the death penalty provision be removed, “I would concede.”

The Netherlands celebrated the 10th anniversary of the world’s first legal gay marriage on April 15 with a set of nuptials presided over by the mayor of Amsterdam at the city’s Museum of History.

“I was not in office then, but I remember that as a citizen of the Netherlands, as an Amsterdammer, it made me very proud,” Mayor Eberhart van der Laan told AFP news.

Rights activists are speaking out against rapes targeting lesbians in South Africa.

About 25 demonstrators rallied outside parliament March 14 while their leaders met with government representatives.

A state in western India banned Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld’s new book about Mahatma Gandhi after reviews said it hints that the father of India’s independence had a homosexual relationship. The author says his work is being misinterpreted.

More bans have been proposed in India, where homosexuality was illegal until 2009 and still carries social stigma.

Malaysia’s first gay-themed romance film has become a swift box-office success, attracting curious cinema audiences who rarely get to see movies centered on sexuality because of strict censorship in this Muslim-majority nation.

The Malay-language movie, called “Dalam Botol” or “In a Bottle,” grossed slightly more than $330,000 in its first five days, recouping its production and marketing costs of $320,000, said Raja Azmi Raja Sulaiman, who wrote and produced the film.

Violence and discrimination against LGBT Haitians spiked in the months following the 7.0 monster earthquake that shook the country, according to a study from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and SEROvie.

The report, “The Impact of the Earthquake, and Relief and Recovery Programs on Haitian LGBT People,” examines human rights violations since the Jan. 12, 2010, natural disaster that killed 222,500 people, left 1.5 million homeless and turned to ruins the capital of Port-au-Prince.

Teenagers in Romania are widely intolerant of Gypsies, gays, Jews and people with AIDS, according to a new poll that called the results “extremely worrisome.”

The findings published April 12 came from a poll paid for by the Soros Foundation and conducted in November. The report says the results show a large number of Romanian teenagers could be described as racist and anti-Semitic.

The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales says that about 900 members of the Church of England have taken the first step toward becoming Catholics.

Catholic Communications Network said March 15 that the converts participated last weekend in a Rite of Election, the first step toward confirmation.

A group of gay Polish soccer fans has called on the organizers of the 2012 European Championships to set aside separate seating for gays and lesbians to protect them from harassment and violence.

But other gay rights activists criticized the recent proposal, saying it would single out gay fans and put them at greater risk.