Gay people apparently have little to fear this fall when Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper engineers a promised vote in Parliament to determine if MPs want to undo Canada’s legalization of same-sex marriage.

For one thing, the Bloc Québécois and New Democratic parties have promised that all their members – who total 79 of the 308 in the House of Commons – will oppose the move.

And more than enough members of the Liberal and Conservative parties seem to feel that reopening the matter is not the best way to spend their time and energy.

The vote is expected to favor gays and lesbians more strongly than the 158-133 vote on June 28, 2005, that legalized same-sex marriage in the first place.

“We’re cautiously optimistic that a majority of MPs will vote against reopening the issue of equal marriage,” said Gilles Marchildon, executive director of the national gay lobby group Egale. “A majority of Canadians want their MPs to move on. … They don’t want him [Harper] to try and roll back the clock on equality.”

Beyond that, nine of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories already had legalized same-sex marriage by the time the federal Parliament did so. As a result, Harper and Parliament could undo same-sex marriage only in Alberta, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Prince Edward Island – unless they manage to utilize the never-used and widely reviled “notwithstanding clause,” which allows provinces or the federal government to enact temporary laws that contradict Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

That is considered to be very unlikely.

Openly gay Parti Québécois Leader André Boisclair could be the next premier of the Canadian province of Quebec, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has reported.

A new poll found the PQ with a 5 percent lead over the currently ruling Liberals in the 2007 provincial election. The leader of the largest party in a provincial legislature is customarily appointed premier.

If chosen, Boisclair has promised to push for a new referendum on Quebec independence. He told Radio-Canada he also hopes to change attitudes toward gay politicians.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper should have attended the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto in August, a CanWest News Service/Global National/Ipsos Reid poll has found.

Fifty-four percent of those questioned said Harper was “wrong” to skip the event while 43 percent supported the decision. Opposition was highest in Quebec (61 percent) and among younger adults (62 percent) and women (60 percent).

The survey questioned 1,002 adults and is considered accurate to within 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

A civil-union bill passed Uruguay’s Senate Sept. 12 in a 25-2 vote.

The gay-specific sections of the bill were voted on separately and passed 16-12.

The measure advanced to the House of Representatives where it is expected to pass easily.

Under the legislation, two people who have lived together for five years in a marriage-like relationship – “whatever their sex, identity or sexual option may be” – will automatically acquire the rights and obligations of a married couple.

They also could choose to officially register their relationship after five years.

The law is expected to be in force by the end of the year.

Following up on its recent outing of 45 alleged gay men, the Ugandan tabloid newspaper Red Pepper outed 13 alleged lesbians Sept. 8.

They include two boutique owners, a basketball player and the daughters of a former member of Parliament and a prominent sheik.

“To rid our motherland of the deadly vice, we are committed to exposing all the lesbos in the city,” the newspaper said, inviting readers to “send more names” of the “lesbin (sic) in your neighborhood.”

Activists said the outing campaigns will lead to loss of jobs, homes, family and friends. Gay sex is illegal in Uganda under Penal Code articles 140, 141 and 143. The punishment for “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” is up to life in prison.

Two elderly sisters in Marlborough, England, have hauled the national government before the European Court of Human Rights demanding the same exemption from inheritance taxes that is granted to straight and gay spouses.

Joyce and Sybil Burden, ages 88 and 80 respectively, say dramatic increases in housing prices mean that if one of them dies, the other will have to sell the home they have shared for decades in order to pay the 40 percent inheritance tax on assets valued at more than £285,000 (US$534,788).

The couple’s farm, on which they were born, and their house, which they built in 1965, are now worth $1.6 million.

“They [the government] are just hoping we die before we get to court,” Joyce told The Times. “But they don’t know how determined we are to see this through.”

A measure to allow same-sex and unmarried couples to adopt children cleared its first hurdle in the Scottish Parliament Sept. 14. The vote was 103-8.

The bill must pass through two additional stages, and Christian organizations and some members of Parliament have promised a vigorous battle against it.