The Vatican shut down the St. Pölten seminary near Vienna Aug. 12 due to a gay scandal.

The school’s computers were found to contain kiddie porn, gay sadomasochistic porn, photos of sex with animals and pictures of students kissing and fondling each other and their male teachers.

“A new beginning is necessary,” said the local bishop.

Prosecutors have charged a seminarian from Poland with possessing and distributing child pornography. He could be imprisoned for two years.

The seminary has been in operation since 1455.

New recruits to England and Wales’ 43 police forces will answer a written question about their sexual orientation starting this fall.

A form will ask if the officer is heterosexual, gay, lesbian or bisexual, or would “prefer not to say,” according to a report in the Independent daily newspaper.

The Gay Police Association supports the move, saying it will help prevent marginalization of GLB officers.

A new poll has found that the Chinese are more open to same-sex unions than Americans.

The Euro RSCG Worldwide survey questioned people in the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Germany and China on a variety of sexual issues.

Fifty percent of Chinese women and 39 percent of Chinese men said same-sex partnerships/marriages should be accorded the same status as man-woman marriages. In the U.S., only 38 percent of women and 31 percent of men agreed with that statement.

In Germany, 67 percent of women and 45 percent of men agreed with the statement; in France, 48 percent of women and 35 percent of men agreed; and in the U.K., 52 percent of women and 37 percent of men agreed.

Substantially more Americans – 39 percent – agreed with the statement “my religious beliefs factor into my sexual behavior.” Only 3 percent of the French, 6 percent of Germans, 15 percent of Chinese and 16 percent of Brits said that about themselves.

Asked if monogamy is natural to humans, 70 percent of Chinese said yes, compared with 57 percent of Americans, 44 percent of the French, 42 percent of Brits and 40 percent of Germans.

The marketing survey questioned 1,982 Americans, 2,127 Brits, 2,000 French people, 3,158 Germans and 2,079 Chinese.

The city of Hangzhou, China, is testing gay men for HIV at the city’s gay bars each Saturday night, China Daily reported.

The first 60 rapid HIV tests, conducted voluntarily, found two cases of infection. Results are available in 20 minutes.

The testing is a joint project of the Zhejiang Provincial Health Bureau and Chicago’s Howard Brown Health Center.

Questioning of the men being tested suggested that only about 20 percent use condoms, the newspaper said.

Representatives of police forces from nine nations, meeting in early August in Amsterdam, formed a Europe-wide support network for gay and lesbian police officers.

“Gaycop” also will offer legal assistance to gay police officers that experience discrimination on the job.

Members of the new group rode on the police boat in Amsterdam’s gay-pride parade Aug. 7. The parade takes place on the city’s canals.

The Labor and Employment Board of the Canadian province of New Brunswick ruled July 28 that the Department of Health and Wellness (DHW) and the Department of Family and Community Services (DFCS) discriminated against a lesbian couple based on their sexuality and marital status.

The women gave birth to a child via artificial insemination. DHW refused to register the baby with the non-biological mother’s surname and refused to recognize her as a parent. DFCS refused to let the non-biological mother adopt the child.

The board ordered the agencies to stop discriminating in such matters and made them pay $7,500 to the non-biological parent and $5,000 to the birth mother for the affronts to their dignity.

Upset over Australia’s new ban on same-sex marriage, a group of gays in Brisbane have staked claim to an uninhabited island in Australia’s Coral Sea Island Territory and declared it independent.

Cato Island, located six hours by boat from Gladstone, Queensland, has been renamed the Gay & Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands. Its flag is the rainbow flag and its coat of arms in an upside-down pink triangle.

Emperor Dale Anderson sent the island’s declaration of independence to the prime minister and the governor general in June. A spokesperson for the government’s territories minister said the declaration would not be recognized.

But the gays are prepared to fight and have outlined their legal strategies on a detailed website.

“We’re very serious about it,” Anderson told the Sydney Star Observer. “If we can force them to do something about it, then they can’t ignore it.”

The kingdom plans to begin producing “camp postage stamps” and “pink dollars.”

Visitors to the new gay homeland may be hampered by the absence of a harbor.

“You have to park the boat off the reef and wait for a wave,” said Anderson.