Argentine gay activists César Cigliutti and Marcelo Suntheim got married in Spain on Jan. 21 and plan to demand that Argentina recognize their marriage.

The Argentine capital of Buenos Aires and the province of Río Negro have same-sex civil-union laws, but there is no established mechanism anywhere in the nation for recognizing same-sex marriages from the six countries that allow them.

Anyone from the European Union can marry in Spain. Suntheim and Cigliutti were able to tie the knot because Suntheim has dual Argentine and German citizenship.

Same-sex marriage also is legal in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa and the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Canada has no citizenship or residency requirements for getting married, and foreign same-sex couples often accomplish the deed in a one-day visit.

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled Jan. 22 that gay people cannot be excluded from access to the adoption process based on their sexual orientation.

In a 10-7 decision in the case E.B. v. France, the court found that France’s refusal to let a lesbian apply to adopt violated articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which cover protection from discrimination and respect for private and family life.

The court awarded E.B. $14,600 in damages and $21,200 in costs and expenses.

E.B., a nursery-school teacher, has been with her female partner, who is a psychologist, since 1990. E.B.’s application for approval as a possible adoptive parent was rejected by local officials in Jura département in 1998 and 1999, and the rejection eventually was upheld by France’s highest administrative court, the Conseil d’État, in 2002.

Officials cited, in part, the absence of a “paternal referent” in E.B.’s home.

The Euro court determined that amounted to anti-gay discrimination.

“This is a significant change in the court’s approach towards and interpretation of the rights of LGBT people under the European Convention on Human Rights,” said Patricia Prendiville, executive director of the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association. “Today the court firmly established a principle that administrative officials cannot discriminate against an individual on the basis of her/his sexual orientation in the process of applying to adopt a child.”

Rulings by the European Court of Human Rights apply in the 47 countries that are members of the Council of Europe.

A member state’s refusal to implement a European Court of Human Rights decision could result in expulsion from the Council of Europe.

Seventy-one percent of Swedes favor moving beyond the nation’s 14-year-old registered-partnership law and granting same-sex couples access to full marriage, a new poll has found.

The Sifo poll questioned 1,000 people in mid-January, asking, “Do you think homosexual couples should be able to legally wed and get married or do you think they should not be able to get married?”

Parliament is expected to legalize same-sex marriage by early 2009, making Sweden the seventh nation to do so.

All political parties support the move except for the Christian Democrats. The party holds only 6.6 percent of seats in Parliament but, in a complicating factor, is a member of the governing coalition.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has nonetheless been “very clear that there will be a government proposal,” said Jon Voss, editor of Sweden’s leading gay newspaper, QX.

“And the opposition will do whatever they can to take the law to Parliament, and by that create a split between the governing parties,” Voss said.

At least 14 cross-dressers have been arrested under a new Kuwaiti law that criminalizes “imitating the appearance of the opposite sex ... in public.”

They are being held in a special ward of Tahla Prison, where guards have shaved off the detainees’ hair and subjected them to other psychological and physical abuse, Human Rights Watch said Jan. 17.

“Transgender people in Kuwait tell Human Rights Watch that they are now afraid to leave their homes – even for work or to meet basic needs – for fear of arrest and ill-treatment,” the organization said in a statement.

“The wave of arrests in the past month shows exactly why Kuwait should repeal this repressive law,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of the group’s Middle East division.

Article 199 of the Criminal Code, approved by the National Assembly on Dec. 10, states, “[A]ny person committing an indecent act in a public place, or imitating the appearance of a member of the opposite sex, shall be subject to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or a fine not exceeding one thousand dinars,” which is about $3,680.

The gayest street in Sydney, Australia, has “lost its mojo” and become “a buttcrack,” The Sydney Morning Herald reported Jan. 18.

Oxford Street has become crime-ridden and is dominated by 24-hour beer barns, noisy nightclubs and neon-lit convenience stores, according to an Urban Cultures Ltd. report commissioned by the City of Sydney.

The strip “has lost its mojo,” the report said. A neighborhood business lobby was less kind, describing the famous gay ghetto as “a buttcrack between two cheeks,” the Morning Herald said.

Fourteen percent of Canadian teenage girls and 13 percent of teenage boys are attracted to people of the same sex, a survey has found.

The Ipsos Reid poll results appeared in the January issue of Pediatrics and Child Health.

Asked if they were attracted to boys only, 86 percent of girls said yes.

Asked if they were attracted to girls only, 87 percent of boys said yes.

The data was gathered in online interviews of 1,171 teens aged 14 to 17 and is accurate to within 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, the pollsters said.

Assistance: Bill Kelley