Stockholm’s largest gay pride parade ever attracted 385,000 people, police said. Photo by J.L. Nilsson/QX

Argentina will delete a law that makes it a crime for members of the military to engage in gay sex. In late August, the national government will submit to Congress its plan to abolish the entire Military Justice Code and create a new military justice system. Among scores of changes, the new laws will not prohibit gay relationships.
“[The ban] was nonsense,” said Colonel Judge Advocate Manuel Lozano, a member of the legal commission designing the new system. “It’s a matter of people’s private lives.”

Irish lesbians seek recognition of Canadian marriage

An Irish lesbian couple married in Canada want their marriage recognized in Ireland for income-tax reasons, among others. The case is expected to be heard by the High Court in October. Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan argue that the government’s refusal to honor their marriage violates their right to marry and the right for their family life to be respected, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

They also say they’re being discriminated against based on their gender and/or sexual orientation. The couple were married in Vancouver in 2003. Canada is one of five nations where same-sex couples have access to traditional marriage.

385,000 at Stockholm pride

Stockholm’s annual pride parade attracted a record 35,000 marchers, 71 floats and 350,000 spectators Aug. 5, police said. It was led by women and men on motorcycles sporting rainbow flags and feather boas. The two-kilometer march went from Östermalm to Tantolunden park. Near the park, in what police called a hate crime, three skinheads attacked a lesbian and two gay men, one of whom was taken to a hospital.

Stockholm will host EuroPride in 2008.

In Reykjavík, Iceland, some 50,000 people took part in the pride parade and festival Aug. 11-12. That is one-sixth of the nation’s population.
Iceland Review Online said the festivities have “become one of the major festivals of the summer.”

Paper reports gay arrests in Saudi Arabia

Twenty men were arrested at a “wedding party of two men” in Jizan, Saudi Arabia, according to an Aug. 16 report in the newspaper Al-Watan. An additional 200 of the total 400 attendees were detained but then released, the report said. The paper said police accused the arrestees of pretending to be women.

Slovak president not interested in partnership law

Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic is not interested in same-sex registered-partnership legislation because “there are many more other problems which should be addressed first,” the News Agency of the Slovak Republic reported Aug. 14. Gasparovic’s remarks came during a meeting with Dusan Caplovic, deputy prime minister for human rights and minorities, who revealed plans to prepare such legislation so that gays are not “forced to the margins of society.”

The neighboring Czech Republic, which was united with Slovakia as Czechoslovakia in the communist era, has a partnership law for gay couples.

Iceland perfects cohabitation laws

Iceland’s parliament, the Althing, has modified the laws on registered cohabitation so that same-sex couples receive every right of marriage—including in the sometimes-controversial areas of adoption and assisted pregnancy, ILGA-Europe reported Aug. 17. “Though quite advanced on gay and lesbian rights, Iceland had lagged a bit behind in recent years,” said activist Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdottir. “As far as family law is concerned, all discrimination against gays and lesbians has now been removed in Iceland.”"

- Assistance: Bill Kelley