A veteran party leader in Hungary’s governing coalition, Free Democrat Klára Ungár, came out March 10 on the TV talk show Strucc.

“It is simpler for me to say that I am homosexual rather than having others saying this to me,” Ungár, 46, said.

A former member of Parliament, Ungár now serves on the Free Democrats’ management committee and is a party spokesperson.

Saudi Arabian police arrested 110 men at a “gay wedding” party in Jeddah, the Al-Wifaq website reported March 17.

The report said security forces raided a wedding hall after receiving a tip and found the men dancing and “behaving like women.”

Seventy-seven of the men reportedly used influential connections to secure their release while 33 appeared in court March 16 to face charges.

Under Saudi law, gay sex can be punished with flogging, imprisonment or death.

This year’s Pride festivities in Cape Town, South Africa, included a pub crawl by white gays in the nearby black townships, the BBC reported March 8.

Five minibuses of gay white folks visited three gay-friendly “shebeens” in the townships.

“Being black and gay is a very different place to being white and gay in Cape Town,” said Juanita Jacobs, one of the Pride organizers. “This year we decided to take Pride into the townships to engender understanding. ... A lot of people don’t come out to these areas because of fear.”

Black gays can find it difficult to visit the bars in Cape Town’s gay village due to the expense of transportation, cover charges and drinks.

When New Zealand’s Civil Union Act comes into force next month, the idea had been to treat married, civil-unioned and de facto couples the same under the law.

But now that’s changed due to concerns that closeted same-sex de facto couples may not want their closet doors knocked down by the government.

De facto couples are couples who have never married or entered a civil union but live in a partnership nonetheless.

According to The New Zealand Herald, same-sex de facto partners will escape being treated as couples for social-welfare purposes for two years as officials mull the problem.

The extension also is designed to allow de facto couples to “reorganize their affairs,” the Herald said.

Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered the National Insurance Institute to begin paying survivor benefits to same-sex partners March 15.

The decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by Giora Raz who quit working to care for his cancer-stricken partner of 23 years, who had worked for El Al Israel Airlines.

Mazuz’s ruling also will apply to areas such as work accident insurance, childbirth allowances and disability pensions.

The chief constable of North Wales, Richard Brunstrom, apologized for calling gays “queer,” the BBC reported March 12.

Brunstrom used the word during an internal department meeting, was challenged on it by one of his officers, and immediately apologized, the report said.

The Gay Police Association said it was “shocked and disappointed” at Brunstrom’s “abusive and insulting language.”

“His words will have affected the confidence that his lesbian and gay staff and the gay communities in North Wales he serves have in him,” the group said. “He should act quickly to demonstrate that this error of judgment is not indicative of a homophobic culture within his force.”

Canada’s largest movie theater chain, Famous Players Media, will no longer run “issue-driven advertising” after a boycott threat by the Canadian Family Action Coalition, the Ottawa gay newspaper Capital Xtra! reported.

The threat followed screening of $15,000 worth of ads favoring same-sex marriage, paid for personally by the chain’s president, Salah Bachir.

The ads were produced by Canadians For Equal Marriage.

The family coalition is still not satisfied and has demanded the chain run an equal number of free ads opposing same-sex marriage, Capital Xtra! said.

The premier of the Canadian province of Alberta, Ralph Klein, has abandoned his long-running fight against legalization of same-sex marriage.

Klein said March 17 that the province has tried every tactic available to resist same-sex marriage and now “will have to abide by the law of the land,” the Edmonton Sun reported.

Klein considered invoking the “notwithstanding clause,” a very rarely used section of Canada’s Constitution that allows provinces or the federal government to enact temporary laws that contradict the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Such temporary provincial laws, however, cannot usurp federal power – and the definition of marriage is a federal matter.