New Zealand’s new Civil Union Act, which took effect April 26, treats married and partnered couples, gay and straight, the same for immigration purposes.

The laws are liberal enough to provide an option for a same-sex couple from two other countries to emigrate together to New Zealand.

Officials look at such things as joint property ownership, sexual involvement, care and support of children, shared household duties, commitment and the relationship’s public profile in deciding who is and isn’t a genuine and stable couple.

HIV-positive people will not be automatically barred.

“People see us as a feisty little country at the end of the world that is accepting of all sorts of people,” gay Member of Parliament Tim Barnett told the Sunday Star-Times.

Eight of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories have legalized same-sex marriage, and gays in the other five are getting antsy.

Four couples filed suit in the Atlantic province of New Brunswick April 25, saying they’re ready to tie the knot.

“Our issue is that we’ve waited long enough,” said plaintiff Art Vautour-Toole.

Court rulings forced legalization of same-sex marriage in all the locations that allow it. Only Alberta, New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Prince Edward Island remain.

The federal Parliament is expected to vote soon to legalize same-sex marriage nationally, but an ongoing corruption scandal may bring down the government and lead to an election before it happens.

“We felt the federal government was going to do this for us,” plaintiff Catherine Sidney told The Globe and Mail. “Now we are not sure what is going to happen, so we felt we did not have any other choice.”

Same-sex marriage also is allowed in Belgium, the Netherlands and, come September, Spain. The U.S. state of Massachusetts also allows same-sex couples access to ordinary marriage.

Montreal’s huge Pride parade will take place in the dark this year, on a Monday night, July 25.

“The night parade is a longtime dream of ours,” said Divers/Cité Director General Suzanne Girard. “The Divers/Cité parade has the potential of being one of the most visually stunning events in Montreal.

To do so, it needs to evolve and remain fresh and new. We want to bring it back to its roots: a celebration.”

For more information on the panoply of Pride events, visit this article at www.gaylesbiantime.com for a link to their Web site.

Bulgaria’s first gay radio program, Gemini, has launched on Radio NET, an over-the-air broadcaster.

Past and future topics of discussion include discrimination, social isolation, anti-gay violence, family, school, love, partnerships, religion, the armed forces, prostitution, media coverage, online dating, sports and the arts.

The program airs Sundays at 1:00 p.m.

EuroPride, the annual pan-European GLBT blowout, heads to Oslo, Norway, this year.

Eleven days of music, art, stage, film, literary, party and religious events will be centered around the June 25 Pride parade.

It will be the first time EuroPride has been held in a country that is not a member of the European Union.

More than 50,000 visitors are expected. For more information visit this article at www.gaylesbiantimes.com for a link to their Web site.

The Third International Conference on LGBT Families will take place in Paris Oct. 25-26.

Attendees will include researchers, academics, judges, social workers, lawyers and others.

The conference is organized by the Association of Gay and Lesbian Parents and Future Parents. It has received support from several major French research institutes.

The 27th European conference of the International Lesbian and Gay Association will be held in Paris simultaneously. For more information visit this article at www.gaylesbiantimes.com for a link to their Web site.

The International Lesbian and Gay Association expressed “dismay and deep concerns over the election of ultraconservative and homophobic Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy.”

“It appears as if hatemongering is now the quickest route to promotion in the Vatican,” said Co-Secretary General Kursad Kahramanoglu.

In an important church document issued in 2003, Ratzinger wrote:

“[H]omosexual acts go against the natural moral law. ... They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

“The approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil,” he added. “[T]he Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against [recognition of homosexual unions]. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.

“Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in [same-sex] unions would actually mean doing violence to these children,” Ratzinger said.

“This is gravely immoral.”

Catholic doctrine teaches that gay sex is “intrinsically evil,” “objectively disordered,” “deviant” and “contrary to the laws of nature.”