NewsWrap for the week ending June 18, 2011

SUMMARY

World First - The Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council resolves for the first time to combat discrimination around the world against LGBT people ...

Ahead of the Pitchforks - Nairobi-based activists launch Kenya's first website to fight the isolation and abuse faced by sexual minorities in the country, and in the same week the nation's top Muslim clerics call on the government to impose the death penalty for homosexual acts ...

Not Well or Fair - activists protest the hiring by their government of a "reparative therapy" promoter to train Hong Kong's social welfare staff ...

Charge of the Split Brigade - some 10,000 opponents violently attack about 200 LGBT people and their allies attempting to march with Pride in the Croatian seaside city of Split ...

Poles Apart - 3,000 Polish Pride-sters shrug off a small counter-protest to parade without violence in Warsaw ...

As Discharges Continue - U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee passes a defense spending bill without the amendments attached by House Republicans designed to delay the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, but with a provision to axe the military's century-old sodomy law ...

Don't PACS It In Yet - France's National Assembly rejects a Socialist Party marriage equality proposal ...

Defense of Money - California district bankruptcy court joins the growing chorus of federal benches to rule that key provisions of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, violate the U.S. Constitution ...

Grasping at Straws - Federal District Judge James Ware rejects the motion by Proposition 8 supporters to vacate the ruling by his now-retired predecessor Vaughn Walker declaring California's marriage equality-banning measure unconstitutional because Walker is gay and in a long-term relationship ...

Eating for Equality - Australian P.M. Julia Gillard, who opposes opening marriage to same-gender couples, will soon have to break bread with three of those couples after an LGBT advocacy group submits the highest bid for that dinner-date at a charity auction ...

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