Fridae

New Zealand has become the first country in the Asia Pacific region and the 13th worldwide to legalise same-sex marriage after its parliament voted 77 to 44 on Wednesday night.

As lawmakers in Vietnam consider legalising same-sex marriage, the country's health ministry has reportedly said that it believes same-sex marriage to be a human right and should be allowed by the state.

Lawmakers in Uruguay on Wednesday voted 71-21 to legalise same-sex marriage, making the South American country the 12th in the world and third in the Americas to do so.

Two historic appeals on marriage are being argued in the US Supreme Court this week. One is a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The other is about an amendment to the state constitution in California. Douglas Sanders, Professor Emeritus in Law at Canada’s University of British Columbia and Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, provides a backgrounder to the two cases.

A lesbian couple, who held the first same-sex wedding at Tokyo Disney Resort, has made headlines around the world after they tweeted photographs of their celebrations last Friday.

At least 60 American corporations including Apple Inc, Nike Inc, Facebook Inc, Morgan Stanley, Intel Corp, Xerox Corp, AIG Inc and Cisco Systems Inc have indicated that they will sign on to two legal briefs to signal their support for same-sex marriage.

France's lower house of parliament on Tuesday approved a sweeping bill to legalise same-sex marriage and give the same rights to all married couples to adopt children.

A federal appeals court in New York became the latest to strike down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law which defines marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman.

After days of heated debate that saw one Liberal Party senator resign after linking same-sex marriage to bestiality, the bill was defeated with 42 MPs supporting the passage of the bill and 98 MPs against.

A lesbian couple has become the first to wed in a same-sex Buddhist wedding ceremony in Taiwan; gay rights groups say they hope the island will become the first place in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage.