Switzerland’s Parliament has given final approval to a gay partnership law that reportedly will include all marriage rights except for access to adoption, in-vitro fertilization and marriage itself.

However, the small, right-wing Federal Democratic Union party has promised to collect enough signatures to force a national voters’ referendum on the measure.

Gay groups said they are hopeful the law will not be overturned.

Full same-sex marriage is allowed in Belgium; the Netherlands; the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec; and the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Partnership laws are on the books in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul and the U.S. states of California, Hawaii, New Jersey and Vermont. Gay couples also have access to some spousal rights in Argentina, Australia, Austria, elsewhere in Brazil,

Hungary, Israel, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Prime Minister John Howard’s proposed bans on same-sex marriage and adoption of foreign babies by gay couples passed Australia’s lower house on June 17 and now move to the Senate.

“This is merely affirming what people understand to be the law,” said Attorney-General Philip Ruddock. “We are of the view that people can have their relationships, it’s just that they can’t have their relationships ascribed the characteristic of marriage when marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman.”

Thirty-eight percent of Australians approve of same-sex marriage and 44 percent oppose it, according to a new SBS World News survey of 1,200 adults. Eighteen percent of those questioned lacked an opinion.

Younger people polled more gay-friendly. Fifty-five percent of those between 18 and 34 favor gay marriage, as do 43 percent of those between 35 and 49. Only 23 percent of people over age 50 want to see gay marriage legalized.

Women (47 percent) are much more likely to approve of gay marriage than men (29 percent).

Police said 1.1 million people turned out in São Paulo, Brazil, June 13 for the city’s eighth gay pride parade, which would make it the world’s largest gay pride celebration.

São Paulo is South America’s largest city and boasts about 85 gay bars and restaurants. Mayor Marta Suplicy gave a speech to kick off the march, which featured 24 sound trucks and a 50-meter rainbow flag.

Some marchers called for the legalization of same-sex marriage. A single Brazilian state, Rio Grande do Sul, presently offers civil unions. A national civil-union bill has been stalled in Congress for years.

Health Ministry employees distributed 50,000 condoms during the parade, reports said.

French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin suspended Mayor Noël Mamère of the Bordeaux suburb of Bègles for one month on June 15 to punish him for performing the marriage of a gay couple.

France has a partnership law for same-sex couples but does not allow them to marry.

Villepin said Mamère gravely misunderstood his duties and “willingly aggravated the fault he committed” by repeatedly publicizing his plan to marry the couple and refusing to back down after warnings from the national government that same-sex marriage is illegal.

Prosecutors have moved to annul the marriage of shop worker Bertrand Charpentier, 31, and nurse Stéphane Chapin, 34. The couple plan to fight back, all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, their lawyer said.

A gay city councilor in Vancouver, Canada, married his partner of 22 years, June 15. Councilor Tim Stevenson said he felt it was important to tie the knot with partner Gary Patterson now, in case the political winds shift.

Full same-sex marriage is allowed in British Columbia, Quebec and

Ontario, where, over the past 14 months, top courts declared the opposite-sex definition of marriage unconstitutional. The current federal government favors opening up the institution nationwide.

Alan Turing, the gay man who is considered the “father” of the modern computer, was honored with a plaque erected outside his Wilmslow, England, home on June 7, the 50th anniversary of his suicide.

According to the BBC, Turing's idea of creating a machine to turn thought processes into binary numbers was one of the key turning points in the history of the computer.

Turing killed himself by eating a cyanide-laced apple two years after being convicted of homosexuality and agreeing to a year of estrogen injections to curb his libido.

Thailand’s Culture Ministry has told television stations to reduce their portrayals of gay behavior, Bangkok’s The Nation reported June 5.

The ministry’s deputy permanent secretary for culture, Kla Somtrakul, said several TV programs have gotten so gay they risk crossing the line to obscenity.

“Many parents told me that they are worried that their children would have sexually deviant behavior after viewing such behaviors on TV,” he said.