The Legislative Assembly of Australia’s Capital Territory passed a civil-unions bill May 10. The bill was revised after the federal government, which bans same-sex marriage, objected to a section that would have let federally licensed marriage celebrants perform the unions.

“I sincerely hope that the legislation will stand,” said ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell.

The federal government has veto power over the ACT Assembly.

The measure reportedly grants civil-union couples the same rights as married couples.

China has blocked adoption by gays and lesbians, the Boston Globe reported May 1.

The nation is the top source for international adoptions, followed by Russia, Guatemala, South Korea and Ukraine, according to the U.S. Department of State.

The communist country also has limited the number of babies who can be adopted by single people – 8 percent of the total per year.

Adoption officials in Massachusetts told the Globe that Chinese officials were “troubled by publicity in the late 1990s over gay parents in the United States raising Chinese babies.”

Gays and lesbians in the 25-nation European Union now have an enforceable right to move to any of the nations in order to live with a same-sex partner.

The EU free-movement directive took effect April 29.

In the case of nations that lack same-sex partnership recognition, a couple can demand a government investigation of their relationship. If it is “real and durable,” then the nation must facilitate the immigration of the foreign partner.

Nations that violate the directive can be challenged in national courts, in EU courts or before the European Commission.

Iraqi police executed a 14-year-old boy in the al-Dura district of Baghdad in early April, the British gay group OutRage! reports. Ahmed Khalil was accused of corrupting the community and creating a scandal because he had sex with men, the group said.

“According to a neighbor, who witnessed Ahmed’s execution from his bedroom window, four uniformed police officers arrived at Ahmed’s house in a four-wheel-drive police pickup truck,” said OutRage!’s Middle East affairs spokesperson, Ali Hili. “The neighbor saw the police drag Ahmed out of the house and shoot him at point-blank range, pumping two bullets into his head and several more bullets into the rest of his body.

“Several other neighbors confirm this account, although they did not see the actual shooting. They say they heard gunshots and saw the police leaving the scene. They then found Ahmed’s body lying on the ground outside his house.”

Hili also coordinates a gay Iraqi organization in the U.K. and says he has reliable contact with an underground network of gay people in Baghdad and other cities.

“According to our contacts … the Iraqi police have been heavily infiltrated by the Shia paramilitary Badr Corps,” Hili said. “They are seeking to impose a fundamentalist morality on the people of Iraq. The murder of Ahmed follows a pattern of Badr executions of suspected gays and lesbians.”

On April 17, the BBC said Iraq has seen an increase in homophobic killings since the U.S. invasion. Frightened gay people told the network the murders are connected to the growing influence of anti-gay religious figures and the increasing lawlessness of militias.

Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council has banned a TV reality show in which men would compete to best dress and act like a woman, the Anadolu news agency reported. “He’s a Lady Now” was axed before the first episode aired following an alleged outcry from members of the public.

Two Australian lesbians got married at the British Consular Agency in Brisbane May 5 under the United Kingdom’s new Civil Partnership Act.

Like some other Australians, Sharon Dane, 48, and Elaine Crump, 47, hold dual Australian-U.K. citizenship. U.K. citizens and their partners can make use of the U.K. law at embassies and consulates if the host nation does not object.

The partnership act grants the same rights and obligations as traditional marriage in the U.K. but is legally meaningless in Australia, which has no comparable law.

More than 20 other such ceremonies reportedly have taken place in Australia.

Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court held a public meeting May 4 to gauge opinion on legalization of same-sex marriage.

The seven justices are expected to rule within weeks on a 2003 case brought by gay lawyer Yasín Castrillo, who claims the Family Code is unconstitutional because it permits only opposite-sex marriage.

The attorney general’s office has urged the court to rule against Castrillo.

EuroPride is in London this year. Two weeks of events will begin June 17, culminating in a parade expected to draw 500,000 people. The march will traverse Oxford and Regent streets and end with a mass rally in Trafalgar Square.

Twenty cops set up Spain’s first gay police association during a meeting in the Catalonian gay resort town of Sitges April 28.

They hope to normalize homosexuality within police organizations and improve police relations with gays and lesbians.

In 2008, nearby Barcelona will host the biennial conference of the European Gay Police Network, which has members from a dozen nations.

Assistance: Bill Kelley