NewsWrap for the week ending November 9, 2013

SUMMARY

Escape Hatch - The European Court of Justice rules that claimants from three African nations have the right to seek asylum in The Netherlands due to persecution based on sexual orientation in their homelands …

Greece the Wheels - European Court of Human Rights orders Greece to open its currently hetero-only civil unions to same-gender couples …

Shedding Excess Hate - the Russian region of Arkhangelsk repeals its local "no promo homo" law, but only because a similar federal law was enacted in June …

Voting Rites - the cabinet of the Republic of Ireland agrees to hold a marriage equality referendum in 2015, and Croatia will ask its voters to approve a constitutional amendment to define marriage as "matrimony between a man and a woman" …

Countdown - Australia's High Court announces that it will hear the federal government's challenge to the marriage equality law enacted in the Australian Capital Territory on December 3rd, just five days before it's scheduled to take effect …

15 … 16 … - lawmakers in Illinois and Hawai'i each approve marriage equality bills that will be enthusiastically signed into law by their respective governors …

State Scorecard - anti-marriage equality New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie wins re-election, but pro-gay Democrat Terry McAuliffe defeats rabidly homophobic Republican Ken Cuccinelli to win the governor's race in Virginia

Cityscape - openly gay Democratic state Senator Ed Murray is elected mayor in Seattle, Washington, out lesbian Democratic Mayor Annise Parker wins her third term in Houston, Texas, and openly gay Republican Don Guardian defeats the Democratic incumbent to become the mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey, while the Victory Fund counts additional mayoral victories for out candidates in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Salisbury, Maryland, and Holyoke, Massachusetts …

Hometown Goodness - Royal Oak, Michigan voters uphold an LGBT rights ordinance passed by the City Commission earlier this year …

Dubious Distinction - the U.K.'s leading LGBT advocacy group Stonewall anoints U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson its "Bigot of the Year" ….

Complete NewsWrap text and this week's podcast to be posted November 12, 2013.