South Africa’s National Assembly passed the government’s Civil Union Bill Nov. 14. The vote was 230-41 with 3 abstentions.

The ruling African National Congress party ordered its 293 MPs to vote in favor of the legislation. There are a total of 400 seats in the chamber.

The measure now moves to the National Council of Provinces, where it should pass easily, then to President Thabo Mbeki for his planned signature.

But the bill may be unconstitutional. A 2005 Constitutional Court ruling gave the government until Dec. 1 of this year to end the Marriage Act’s discrimination against same-sex couples, finding that it violates the 1994 Constitution’s prohibition against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The court said that if lawmakers did not take satisfactory action by Dec. 1, the Marriage Act automatically would be construed to allow same-sex marriage.

The unusually worded bill just passed provides for the “voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnised and registered by either a marriage or civil union.” The bill did not change the wording of the Marriage Act itself. It also permits discrimination by allowing marriage officers and clergy to opt out of performing same-sex unions as a matter of “conscience, religion or belief.”

South Africa’s Human Rights Commission has called the bill unconstitutional, discriminatory and stigmatizing, and said the government should simply amend the Marriage Act to allow same-sex marriages.

Jerusalem’s Pride parade was canceled this month for a fourth time. Instead, organizers staged a small rally at Hebrew University’s sports stadium on Nov. 10.

Each time the parade had been scheduled, the police complained that some new threatening development in the nation was sapping their manpower and, as a result, they didn’t have enough officers available to protect marchers from violent anti-gay zealots.

Each time, parade organizers decided the police’s story seemed legitimate and backed down from holding the parade.

The rally at the sports stadium attracted about 4,000 participants and 3,000 police officers. It followed days of anti-gay rioting in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods by forces opposed to any gay parade. Police said it would have taken 9,000 officers to protect a march.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s openly lesbian daughter, Dana, took part in the rally.

The final version of government-proposed amendments to Singapore’s penal code will legalize oral and anal sex for straight people but not for gays.

The amendments, hammered out over a three-year period, were made public Nov. 9.

A note from the Home Affairs Ministry that accompanied the amendment proposals said Singapore is “a conservative society [and] many do not tolerate homosexuality.”

But the government said it will not be “proactive” in enforcing the remaining ban on male-male sex, which carries a penalty of up to two years in prison.

Another clause set for repeal punishes “unnatural” sex of any sort with up to life in prison.

A Web site called Iran Focus reported Nov. 14 that “a gay Iranian man was hanged in public on Tuesday in the western city of Kermanshah on the charge of sodomy.”

The report said “Shahab Darvishi was charged with organising a ‘corruption ring,’ deliberate assault, and ‘lavat,’ which means homosexual relationship between two men or sodomy.”

The report credited “the official news agency IRNA” as a source for the story.

The Islamic Republic News Agency’s version of the story said the Kermanshah Province Justice Department Communications Department said Darvishi was “found guilty of forming a coterie of corruption rings, physical assaults and the despicable act of sodomy.”

IRNA said the death sentence was issued by the Second Court of the town of Sahneh, and upheld by the Second Appeal Court of Kermanshah and the 27th Branch of the Supreme Court.

“Hundreds of Kermanshah’s residents were present at the scene of the execution,” IRNA said. “They were supportive of the judicial system’s decision and called for adopting a tough stance against criminals and disturbing elements.”

Iran’s version of Islamic law does punish gay sex with execution, and many human-rights activists say, with varying degrees of certainty, that the nation has executed numerous men for the crime since the 1979 religious revolution.

But it is notoriously difficult to fact-check news that emanates from the nation, and skepticism of any one report is always warranted, as Iran does not have a free press.

On Nov. 15, Human Rights Watch’s Jessica Stern sent an e-mail to this publication which said, in part: “We are concerned with the charges in the case and by the case’s lack of information. One or two sources should be considered inconclusive, especially in reporting on a case of this kind. … We strongly urge caution until more information is known.”

In the same vein, the secretary general of the Iranian Queer Organization, formerly called the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization, commented: “Similar to the Mashad incident last year, it may be extremely difficult to firmly establish why this man was hanged, or whether the charges were fabricated. Whatever the truth is, the Iranian government must be stopped from killing people for sex-related crimes.”

On July 19, 2005, two teenage boys, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, were publicly hanged in Mashad, and graphic photos of the executions circulated on the Web. Some Iranian and foreign media said the teens’ crime was being gay lovers. Other Iranian and foreign media said they had raped a boy. International human rights groups say they have been unable to determine which version of the story is true.

Nonetheless, “the death penalty is on the books for gay sex [and] it’s at least sporadically enforced,” said Scott Long, HRW’s LGBT program head, in a Nov. 16 interview.

Assistance: Bill Kelley