The Israeli State Attorney’s Office has extended the spousal exemption from property-transfer taxes to same-sex couples, Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post reported Feb. 25.

The office announced its decision during a Supreme Court hearing in the case of two men who were hit with the tax after one transferred half of the rights to their apartment to the other.

Tax officials had maintained the exemption was available only to opposite-sex couples living as a family.

“It’s a great step forward,” activist Hagai El-Ad, executive director of Jerusalem Open House, told the Post. “[But] it’s a far cry from the marriage-like arrangement in Western European countries.

“We can check off item number seven on our list of 200 [spousal rights we don’t have],” El-Ad said. “If we continue this way, it will take 50 years. I’m a patient person, but I’m not that patient.”

The Tokyo District Court Feb. 26 rejected an asylum request from a gay Iranian who fears he will face the death penalty because of his sexual orientation when he returns home.

“Not being permitted to express himself sexually in his own way does not fall under the kind of persecution in the refugee convention,” said Judge Yosuke Ichimura.

Ichimura also speculated that it is unlikely the man would be targeted because of his gayness since he is closeted.

The man, age 40, had lived in Japan since 1991 and was arrested in 2000 for being an illegal alien. He plans to appeal to the Tokyo High Court.

According to the Japan Times, Iranian adults who have anal sex can be put to death, two men who sleep naked under a cover face 99 lashes, and two men who kiss “with lust” can get 60 lashes. Repeated lesbian sex acts also can result in the death penalty, the paper said.

Britain’s Conservative Party will stage a gay summit to broaden its appeal, the BBC reported Feb. 25.

Some 140 organizations are slated to attend.

“In the past we have often been seen in terms of what we are against rather than what we are for,” the Tory spokesman for young people, Charles Hendry, told the BBC. “My hope is that people across the party will recognize that to win elections we have to show that we are representative.”

Tory leader Michael Howard supports the summit, which will be held March 29 in the House of Commons’ Grand Committee Room, the report said.

Poland’s Council of Ministers Feb. 24 refused to create a government office charged with promoting equality between men and women and battling discrimination, including against gays and lesbians.

The council cited budget problems.

In 2002, the council itself had instructed the Government Plenipotentiary for the Equal Status of Women and Men to draft the legislation that would have created the office.

The move was aimed at harmonizing Polish law with that of the European Union, which Poland is set to join this year.

Lambda Warsaw has appealed for help from abroad to counteract the latest development.

The group asks that letters be sent to Prime Minister Leszek Miller, Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, al. Ujazdowskie 1/3, 00-583 Warsaw, Poland. Fax: 011-48-22-625-2637. E-mail: cirinfo @kprm.gov.pl.

Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk, 81, said Feb. 24 that he is not gay.

The remark, published on his Web site, norodomsihanouk.info, followed by four days Sihanouk’s coming out in favor of same-sex marriage.

“I am not gay, but I respect the right of gays and lesbians,” he said. “It’s not their fault if God makes them born like that. Gays and lesbians would not exist if God did not create them. As a Buddhist, I must have compassion for human beings who are not like me but who torture nobody, kill nobody.”

On Feb. 20, Sihanouk had written: “I think [Cambodia] should allow marriage between man and man or between woman and woman if they desire it.”

Sihanouk has no executive powers but is deeply revered by many Cambodians.

The Canadian Press wire service, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Associated Press, and newspapers in Canada and the U.S. recently reported incorrect numbers for same-sex marriages that have taken place in Toronto since Ontario’s highest court legalized same-sex marriage on June 10, 2003. The errors were widely repeated in the gay press.

The CP wire issued a correction on Feb. 18. It states: “… from June 10, 2003, until Feb. 13 of this year, there were 1,143 same-sex marriage licenses issued by the City of Toronto. Of those, 398 licenses were issued to Americans and 61 were for couples outside Canada and the U.S. The total number of marriage licenses issued by the city during that period was 12,046.”

Gay singer and DJ Boy George paid $18,740 Feb. 25 to settle a libel suit filed by a London nightclub employee he had accused of assault.

He also apologized to Sweet Suite membership secretary Andrew Thompson for the accusation, which appeared in a newspaper column and magazine interview.

George punched out Thompson on June 20, 2002, and later said Thompson had provoked him and deserved to be smacked.