Gay and heterosexual couples are now treated equally under immigration rules, New Zealand Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel announced Sept. 29.

All couples must prove they have lived together in a genuine and stable partnership for one year when they seek a permanent-residency application for a foreign partner. In the past, there was a two-year wait for de-facto and same-sex couples and no wait for married couples.

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Uganda has informed the government that gays will form their own political party if they are not granted equal rights, Kampala’s The Monitor reported Oct. 6.

“We believe criminalizing us because of our nature is unfair,” GALA Chairman S.W.I. Lule said. “If you fail to honor our request, we will be forced to form our political party to represent our interests.”

In response, Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Janat Mukwaya told The Monitor: “I would advise them to read the Constitution. I don’t think gays have a right in our Constitution.”

Egypt continues to round up and arrest gay men by the hundreds, Human Rights Watch said Oct. 6.

In the latest incident, Cairo police blocked both ends of a bridge known for gay cruising and arrested 62 men found on the structure.

They were held for three days and released on bail after being charged with “habitual practice of debauchery.” They face up to three years in prison.

“These arrests are only the latest in a two-year official campaign against homosexual conduct,” said Joe Stork, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. “Many of those detained in the past have been tortured in detention.”

Britain is removing more than 300 people from its sex-offender registry because they were convicted of crimes that will no longer exist come next May — buggery and gross indecency between men.

The crimes will disappear when the sex-offenses bill now moving through Parliament reaches the statute book, said The Guardian.

The Russian Orthodox priest who conducted the nation’s first known same-sex wedding was defrocked Oct. 6.

Father Vladimir Enert accepted $450 to marry Denis Gogolev, 27, and Mikhail Morozov, 23, in the city of Nizhny Novgorod Sept. 1.

The church quickly voided the wedding and suspended Enert. Now it has stripped him of his priesthood altogether.

“We have decided to expel Father Vladimir Enert from sacred office after he voluntarily carried out this blasphemous act,” a spokesman said.

A gay kiss on an evening soap opera that has aired in the United Kingdom for 43 years grabbed 54.7 percent of all TV viewers Oct. 6.

Fourteen million people tuned in to see “Coronation Street” character Todd Grimshaw (Bruno Langley) plant one on Nick Tilsley (Adam Rickett).

The Argentine transvestite-transsexual organization ALITT (Association for the Fight for Transvestite-Transsexual Identity) was denied governmental registration Sept. 23.

In rejecting the application, Justice Ministry Inspector General Ricardo Augusto Nissen wrote: “I consider that the aims listed by ALITT ... do not fall into the category of ‘public good’ required of legally registered organizations under Article 33 of the Civil Code. It does not seem to me that ‘to fight for recognition of transvestism as an identity by both society and the State’ nor ‘building transvestite-transsexual citizenship’ offer a valuable framework for the development of coexistence.”

Lithuanian sculptor Bronius Vysniauskas wants $300 from the Lithuanian Gay League because it snapped a photo of one of his public sculptures of muscular, square-jawed Communist workers and put it on the cover of its magazine.

Vysniauskas says if the group doesn’t hand over the money, he will sue them for $8,000 for defamation.

“I created a monument of two socialist workers, not gays,” Vysniauskas said, according to Advocate.com. “I don’t know how homosexuals came to the idea my models were gay.”

Members of the London gay group OutRage! picketed the consecration of two bishops at Westminster Abbey Oct. 29 to protest the Anglican hierarchy’s rejection of gay bishop appointee Jeffrey John earlier this year.

They carried posters reading, “[Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan] Williams is a coward,” “Where is Jeffrey John?” and “Stand up to the Church Nazis.”

“There will be no peace for an archbishop who refuses to take a stand or to show moral leadership,” said OutRage!’s Brett Lock. “No spin-doctoring will make the issue disappear.”

John would have been consecrated at the ceremony as bishop of Reading, England, if Williams had not forced him to stand down from his appointment to placate homophobes in the worldwide Anglican Communion. They were horrified that John is openly gay and lives with a partner, although he has said they no longer have sex.

The conservatives threatened that the Anglican Communion would break apart if John were allowed to take the job.