Spain’s new Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, said March 18 that the nation will give same-sex couples all the rights of marriage.

“We are going to present a bill to set gay unions on the same footing as marriage,” he told Telecinco TV. “From a semantic point of view, marriage may be a concept that does not cover this type of union, but it will have the same legal effects.”

A Spanish sailor who declared himself transsexual will be allowed to return to work as a woman.

A military medical tribunal declared helicopter mechanic José Antonio Gordo Pantoja, 30, fit for service March 25.

“I am so happy I have screamed for joy,” he told reporters.

Gordo Pantoja has served for eight years and is presently taking hormones in advance of gender-reassignment surgery.

Ecuadorian gay activist Patricio Ordóñez Maico was knifed in the chest and back March 12 in the Quito office of the gay group Friends for Life Foundation by an attacker who shouted, “I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch.”

The attack happened a week after Ordóñez spoke at an international human-rights meeting about a complaint he has filed against National Police officers who allegedly assaulted him, sexually abused him and threatened to kill him.

On March 19, Amnesty International urged its supporters to appeal for Ordóñez’ protection.

Saudi Arabia is blocking access to gay Web sites, including GayMiddleEast.com, Gay.com and 365Gay.com, Reporters Without Borders said March 22.

“Officially [Saudi] filtering is only supposed to be applied to pornographic publications or those directly harming Islam,” the group said. “In fact, the Saudi Internet blacklist extends to other areas, from political sites to non-recognized Islamist sites. ... We condemn this extension of censorship, which is in the process of reducing the country’s network to an Intranet, as in Burma or Cuba.”

The highest court in the Canadian province of Quebec, following in the footsteps of the highest courts in Ontario and British Columbia, legalized full same-sex marriage March 19.

Unlike in British Columbia and Ontario, where couples, including foreigners, can buy a license and marry the same day, Quebec requires a 20-day waiting period between the acquisition of a license and the wedding itself – for residents and foreigners alike.

Thus, the first weddings are expected to take place on, or sometime after, April 7. The first couple expected to marry is Michael Hendricks and René LeBoeuf, who were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to the decision.

However, the 20-day delay can be waived if arrangements are made in advance with the individual who will conduct the marriage, said a spokesman for Egale, Canada's national GLBT lobbying organization.

“The floodgates seem to be open and it looks like Canada is going to become the first North American country that has equal marriage and this is wonderful,” Hendricks told reporters.

The federal government has said it supports last summer’s rulings that legalized same-sex marriage in Ontario and British Columbia and will introduce legislation to open up marriage nationwide, but it has yet to act except for sending four procedural questions to the Canadian SupremeCourt.

Quebec has offered same-sex civil unions, which extend all the provincial rights of marriage, since 2002.

The city assembly of Yame, Japan, in Fukuoka Prefecture, passed a draft anti-discrimination ordinance March 22 but refused to include gays, Japan Today and Kyodo News reported.

A rejected clause banned discrimination “related to sexual identity disorder and other gender issues,” which city officials said was meant to cover same-sex relationships.

Assembly members said the language was too ambiguous and could have been used to protect pedophiles.

Gay soccer players in Mexico City have formed their own league, called Halcones (Falcons).

The five teams – El Clan, Fashion Team, The Fuckers, Fuerza G, and Tu Mamá (The Clan, Fashion Team, The Fuckers, G Force, and Your Mama) – will play weekly in Chapultepec Park.

League President Aarón Rojas says the group has not encountered any opposition except from some gay people.

“We have distributed advertising in the Zona Rosa [gay neighborhood] and when we inform them that we’re interested in building our soccer team, they break out laughing and say to us in a mocking way, ‘Don't tear your hose or break your nails,’” Rojas said.

The government of the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar, which is part of the nation of Tanzania, has drafted a bill to ban same-sex marriage and punish gay sex with life in prison.

An existing national law punishes gay sex with 14 years in prison, but it is rarely enforced.

The Zanzibari proposal also would punish men who marry men with a 25-year sentence and women who marry women with a seven-year sentence.

“We have heard that same-sex marriages have taken place here and we want to guard against this trend,” Deputy Attorney General Omar Makungu told the BBC.