NewsWrap for the week ending June 13, 2015

SUMMARY

Against the Grain - Germany’s upper house of parliament defies Chancellor Angela Merkel by passing a marriage and adoptions equality resolution …

Ireland Reverberates - civil unions bills for same-gender couples advance in Italy and Greece …

Safe Zone - an Arkansas judge upholds the validity of the marriages of some 500 gay and lesbian couples who wed before a federal court ruling overturning the state’s ban was appealed …

Last Chapter of Anita - Florida lawmakers finally repeal a decades-old ban on fostering and adoption by lesbians and gay men …

Declare Yourself - Colombia no longer requires trans people to undergo invasive medical exams before changing their gender on official documents …

Marching On - Pride parades in Nicosia -- without disruption this year -- and in Tel Aviv and Sao Paulo …

Spells and Misspells - Dumbledore and Gandalf get fantasy-married in Topeka, Kansas across the street from the hideously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, whose cult members are still reeling from accidentally damning the Ivory Coast in a protest of Ireland’s marriage equality landslide …

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NewsWrap for the week ending January 24, 2015

SUMMARY

With and Without Civility - Chilean lawmakers put the finishing touches on a civil unions bill, but Macedonia’s Parliament bans civil marriage and makes civil unions almost impossible …

Three Strikes - Portuguese lawmakers reject for the third time a bill to open adoption to same-gender couples …

Sweet Home - a U.S. federal judge overturns Alabama’s civil marriage ban …

News That's Fit to Scapegoat - the Egyptian government has reportedly ordered state-run media to step up negative coverage of LGBT people …

Censored! - Russian authorities tentatively ban films that “defile national values” -- such as, critics warn, any with positive LGBT content -- and the founder of an online site for Russian LGBT teens, “Children-404," is convicted of spreading “gay propaganda” …

Trans World Headlines - Israel’s high court allows trans people to change the gender designation on their IDs without having to undergo reassignment surgery, the first housing shelter for Turkish trans-women opens in Istanbul, and trailblazing Silverton, Oregon Mayor Stu Rasmussen, the first transgender mayor in the U.S., leaves politics -- at least for now ….

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