Fridae

The New Straits Times's Audrey Vijaindren asks if Malaysian society lacks compassion and kindness towards transgenders as the media reports on Fatine Young, a Malaysian transsexual who faces deportation (and possibly jail) to Malaysia for overstaying in Britain with her husband.

Uganda is likely to pass a law within months that will make homosexuality a capital offence, joining 37 other countries in the continent where American evangelical Christian groups are increasingly spreading bigotry.

Twenty-six year old Evan Low is believed to be the United States' youngest openly gay mayor and also one of the youngest Asian American mayors in the country.

New legislation proscribing a minimum penalty of life in jail for sex is being debated in parliament; US evangelists are said to main activists behind the measure.

A 10-year-old Arkansas boy named Will Phillips has refused to stand up in class and recite the pledge of allegiance as he feels that gays are not allowed to get married and are not included as part of a nation that provides ''liberty and justice for all.”

An Argentine judge has granted a gay couple permission to get married, setting a precedent that could pave the way for the Catholic country to become the first in Latin America to allow same-sex marriage.

It is a “provocation and an abuse”should gay and lesbian tourists visit the Vatican City, Bishop Janusz Kaleta of Holy tells a travel and tourism website.

President Barack Obama has signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act - named after victims of two brutal 1998 murders: Shepard, a 21-year-old gay Wyoming college student and Byrd, a black man dragged to his death - on Oct 28.

In an interview with The Edge Malaysia, Pang Khee Teik, co-organiser of Seksualiti Merdeka, confesses that he's most afraid of gay men - gay men who have given up exercising their rights to express their sexuality, and have urged others to do the same.

The politicisation of Islam is one of the main reasons why gays are increasingly persecuted in Islamic countries and secular ones such as Egypt or Morocco. In Iran, the persecution of gays has further led to a boom in demand for sex-change operations and where more operations are performed than any other country in the world besides Thailand.