Following proposals this week proposing same-sex couples parenting and fertility rights in the UK, the petition declares that certain states in the US would fail to mirror these rights, if ratified in law.

The petition say, “In reality there is no special relationship.

“Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, executing Saddam, climate change, gay rights, the extradition treaty… we never persuade them to our point of view and they never to keep their side of the bargain. It’s time for the Atlantic alliance to be put on the back burner and have a stronger European alliance.”

Citing individual state’s different views on gay rights, the petition’s creator Geoff Hamilton states, “We never persuade (the US) to our point of view and they never keep to their side of the bargain.”

He continues, “(there is) no need for non-cooperation with the US but cooperation on level terms and acknowledgment that the ‘special relationship’ was only ever one way, that between a man and his dog.”

The Christian Right in the US regularly speaks out against gay rights. Most recently, conservative groups criticised US Vice President Dick Cheney over his lesbian daughter’s pregnancy.

However, right-wing religious assertions are beginning to become more agressive in the UK with the virulent opposition towards the new Sexual Orientation Regulations.

The petition is available on the Downing Street website.

McConaughey joked in Details magazine: “We tried it. It wasn’t for us.”

The 2005 People magazine “Sexiest Man Alive” and star of 2006 film Failure to Launch has previously been romantically linked to Penelope Cruz and Sandra Bullock.

Lance Armstrong was engaged to singer Sheryl Crow until February this year.

Armstrong had previously said,”We all have buds. We all take guy trips, but you take something very normal and you put it in a magazine, and people start talking. It’s like, either you sleep with everything that moves or you’re gay.”

Armstrong and McConaughey are both from Austin, Texas, and have been

friends for eight years.

They have recently been sharing a beach house and can often be seen biking and working out together, sometimes accompanied by Donnie Darko star Jake Gyllenhaal. This has led to rumours that the two unattached hunks are romantically linked.

Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times consecutively, having previously overcome testicular and brain cancer.

Inhabitants of the Al-Amiriya and Al-Jamia’a neighbourhoods have told of how extremist groups have raped and beheaded gays in the street and also targeted their relatives.

Under Saddam’s regime, gays were imprisoned. However, the Iraqi constitution approved by referendum in December 2005, refers to Islam as being “the official religion of the state and a basic source of legislation”.

Under Sharia law, homosexuality is punishable by death. The recent “hunting-down” has received a blessing from one of the highest religious authorities in Iraq, Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

There is concern about the involvement of policemen in criminal acts have also been raised by western officials and Sunni Arab leaders.

Sunnis say the Shia-controlled interior ministry has been infiltrated by Shia militias, such as the Badr Brigades, who allegedly use their uniforms as cover to kidnap, torture and murder.

OutRage!, the gay human rights group, has reported on a fatwa imposed on gays in October 2005.

A website linked to Sistani in the Iranian city of Qom wrote: “The people involved [in homosexuality] should be killed in the worst, most severe way”

Although the text was removed from the website in May 2006, the fatwa has not been officially revoked.

Outrage! has also reported of cases where family members of gay male relatives have been murdered for refusing to hand them over to the militia.

Yesterday, Mozambican Human Rights League (LDH) chairperson Alice Mabota urged Mozambique’s gay and lesbian citizens to organise and fight for their rights.

She said that, while the LDH will support gay rights, it is not campaigning specific issues such as the legalisation of gay marriage, and that it would be up to the gay community to raise such a demand.

A Mozambican gay rights activist suggested that the movement should concentrate on removing any clause from the country’s laws that might be used to criminalise gays, and to introduce measures that ban discrimination on the base of sexual orientation, in the same ways as discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, religion or ethnic group is already outlawed.

He added that gay rights were often dismissed as irrelevant, because Mozambican society had more pressing issues to deal with, such as the fight against hunger.

He did not call for gay marriage, but suggested “gradual recognition of the rights of gay partners living in de facto unions”.

The University of California’s Williams Institute used the figures of the 2000 Census to estimate that the numbers of same-sex households in Iowa jumped from 3,700 in 2000, to 5,800 in 2005.

The states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Nebraska also saw their same-sex numbers rising with increases of more than 70 percent.

Researcher Gary Gates said that checking the box on the Census was a new way of coming out. He said one of the reasons for big increases in the Midwest is it has “one of the biggest closets.”

Students at the university began protesting the PURE course after it was discovered to recommend homophobic literature, such as What Some of You Were by Christopher Keane, which details the stories of “ex-gays” who have been “cured” of their homosexuality by the power of Christianity, and how “gay relationships are characterized more by promiscuity than by fidelity.”

Edinburgh students quickly began the protest online at the student social-networking website Facebook. The “Stop PURE” group page states:

“<We are> a Group aimed at gathering all those who are clear minded enough to see that the Christian Union’s PURE course, aimed at “curing” homosexuality, is a derogatory and degrading course, with literature that is insulting and bigoted towards homosexuals and anyone else who doesn’t take the bible literally.”

Group creator Lucy Chambers told the Guardian: “We want to use the group to help make students aware of the issues raised by the presence of this course on our campuses and to encourage them to make a stand. Facebook is a great means to contact lots of students up and down the country in the space of a few minutes.

“We have already set in motion a process whereby our students’ association is investigating the course and it is our hope that we will be able to use the group, or perhaps set up a new one, to affect change nationwide.”

The Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) launched PURE earlier this year. It is believed to be the first of its kind in Britain and follows the controversial American programme, the Silver Ring Thing, where teenagers wear a silver ring to show they intend to remain virgins until they are married.

The four students — Jessica Arvidson, Stacey Booe, Matt Hill Comer and Alex Nini — were participating in the Right to Serve campaign, a national effort by the group Soulforce protesting the federal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

The policy dates back to 1993, when President Bill Clinton suspended a Department of Defence policy banning gays and lesbians from the military.

The compromise from this was “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” under which the military was not to inquire about the sexual orientation of prospective service members, and gays and lesbians were not to reveal their sexual orientation.

Under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” those who did or were “found out” would be subject to dismissal.

Members of the military must abide by the U.S. Code, said Major Stewart Upton, a press officer for the Department of Defence, in the Greensboro News Record . “Under that policy, any person who has stated that they are a homosexual or bisexual cannot be allowed entry into the U.S. military services based upon the applicable laws and regulations governing sexual conduct by members of the armed forces.”

Regarding the protesters, Major Upton said: “the Department of Defence supports and defends the constitutional right of all U.S. citizens to free speech and peaceful assembly.”

The step coincides with efforts by conservative lawmakers, including the next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to revive respect for traditional family values they fear are being eroded in modern society.

The local legislature in Miyakonojo, a city of 171,000 on Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu, voted in favour of a revision to a 2003 law that explicitly banned discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation, a city official said.

The national “Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society,” passed by Japan’s Diet in 1999, required local governments to develop laws and policies promoting equality between men and women. While the national law did not mention sexual orientation, Miyakonojo ‘s ordinance stated: “In the gender-equal society, for all people irrespective of gender and sexual orientation, human rights should be fully respected.”

The new version deletes the reference to gender or sexual orientation.

A city official said the revision would not change the way the law is implemented. Officials said previously the amendment was intended to make the law easier to understand.

“The spirit of the law, its intention, remains although the phrase has been changed,” Meiko Kawasaki, in charge of gender equality affairs at city hall, told Reuters

“There is no change in our policy,” she said.

The international organisation Human Rights Watch had written to Miyakonojo Mayor Makoto Nagamine, who introduced the amendment, protesting the change and urging the city to reconsider.

On Friday, Japan’s first openly lesbian politician, Kanako Otsuji, expressed disappointment and anger.

“I really want to ask those who made this decision why they made it,” said Ms Otsuji, a local legislator in the western Japanese city of Osaka who had campaigned against the change.

The recommendation, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urges testing at least once for everyone aged 13 to 64 and annual tests for those with high-risk behaviour.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, the disease control agency’s director and a doctor who treated some of the first San Francisco AIDS patients in 1981, said: ”Our traditional approaches have not been successful. People who don’t know their own H.I.V. status account for 50 to 70 percent of all new infections. If they knew, they would take steps to protect themselves and their partners.”

About 40,000 Americans are newly infected each year, a number that has been remaining steady. In contrast to the early days of the epidemic, which struck gay men the hardest, many of those now infected are black or Hispanic teenagers and were infected by heterosexual sex. The agency estimates that 250,000 Americans, a quarter of those with the disease, do not know they are infected.

The proposal is a sharp break from the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when the stigma of the disease and the fear of social ostracism caused many people to avoid being tested.

That led to heated debate about whether positive test results could be shared by medical and governmental authorities in their effort to contain the epidemic by reaching out to partners of those who might be infected.

The new guidelines, if adopted, would move the agency toward its ”ultimate goals,” which Dr. Gerberding defined as: no more H.I.V.-infected children, no one living for years without antiretroviral treatment and, eventually, no more new cases of the disease.

This decision reverses a failed vote to ban discrimination in the workplace against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people (LGBT) in June. the failure to implement the ban drew strong criticism from human rights and gay and lesbian groups but also from Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis and President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

However, not all parliamentarians were as outraged at the reversed legislation; Janis Smits, from the centrist Latvia First Party, voted against the amendment: “This ban means that a small, marginal group will be protected, while other groups of normal people can still be discriminated against.”

Mr Smits had previously stated that implementing a ban on sexual-orientation discrimination could potentially “open the floodgates to pederasty, lesbianism, pedophilia, zoophilia, and will legalise other pathologies.”

Pathologist Dr Vesna Djurovic said Jacqueline Queen suffered dozens of injuries before she died and may have been unconscious as her ex-boyfriend James Seaton, 46, battered her to death.

Miss Queen, 39, died after sustaining serious head injuries inflicted by a club hammer found in a bucket in Mr Seaton’s bedroom and one of 13 knives discovered in his sink.

The pathologist said a horrific stab wound inflicted on her neck while she was still alive contributed to her death together with skull fractures and brain damage.

She said the 12cm wound through her neck showed that a weapon had been inserted with severe force, partially withdrawn and then plunged back in again, and that she also found evidence of a cutting action, the jury heard.

The body, wrapped in bed sheets, was later found by a dog walker in East Finchley, North London, last November

William McGinley, 45, a Rainbow Project volunteer, indecently assaulted a man, 22, at his home on 3 March 2005.

Londonderry Crown Court heard Mr McGinley’s victim awoke to discover Mr McGinley assaulting him.

The judge said she was taking into account Mr McGinley’s clear record., and the fact that Mr McGinley told the court that he felt deep remorse about the offence

The court heard that after McGinley invited the man back to his home, McGinley told the man that he was gay but preferred straight men.

Lucas McCauley, 30, frequented a well known gay and transgender club dressed as a woman named Reshae.

The murder was being considered as a possible hate crime. On Monday, killer William McHenry, 27 was sentenced to life imprisonment, bringing relief to those who were involved with the case.

Ms McCauley’s mother, found her child dead the next night in the living room of her apartment, which was next door to her home.

McHenry, who at the time was living with a 55-year-old female companion, was arrested and charged with murder within days of the slaying. After a four-day trial that started earlier this month, jurors found McHenry guilty.

The murder sparked fear in the gay and transgender community. Shortly after the crime, Equality Florida, a gay advocacy organization, held a vigil for McCauley.

“With this particular case being brought to justice, it is certainly a step in the right direction,” said Brian Winfield, communications director for Equality Florida, to the St Petersburg Times . “It’s good to see that at least in some cases, justice is served.”

The doctor, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the children, has been granted temporary custody of his children by the Johannesburg High Court last week. Judge Mohammed Jajbhay ordered that the doctor get temporary custody pending investigations by a family advocate.

The general practitioner had argued in court papers that his former wife, a clinical psychologist, had wanted to remove the boys from him was because he was gay and living with his life partner.

He contended that his ex-wife was not a good parent to their sons, and that during their marriage she had abused him emotionally and financially. She often referred to their firstborn child as ‘his’ child and constantly maintained that the second child was mentally unstable.

She would force the 12-year-old to attend therapy sessions by psychiatrists, the doctor told The Star .

The doctor stated that, during their 14-year marriage, his ex-wife led an expensive lifestyle and would often move the family into more elite areas which financially taxed him.

She had then begun accusing him of having extra-marital affairs and became very unsociable and ‘blatantly rude’ to any friends that the doctor would bring home.

After their divorce in March 2003, his ex-wife refused him joint custody of the boys. “I was devastated to leave the children … I missed the children terribly,” he explained.

In mid-2003 the doctor lost his job for a while and was unable to pay full maintenance. “The children advised me that the respondent would not allow them to drink coffee at home, telling them I had not paid her enough money,” he said of his ex-wife.

However, by 2004 his ex-wife had decided that the boys should live with their father and his partner.

“It was clear to me, while exercising access to the children, that they were neglected while living with the respondent. Their clothes were always untidy, they would not brush their teeth or worry about their personal hygiene,” he elaborated.

Last month, the children’s mother showed up at his house, declaring that she wanted to take the children back. “I enquired from her why she wanted to take the children away, especially in the light of the fact that they were in a stable environment and are happy with their lives. The respondent then alleged that she is concerned about the safety and emotional wellbeing of the children. I can only surmise that this was a thinly veiled attack on my homosexual lifestyle.”

According to prosecutor Oscar Garcia, the 15-year old and two other men targeted six victims leaving the gay pride festival, attacking them with knives and baseball bats.

The teen pleaded guilty to three counts of assault with a deadly weapon and hate crime allegation. In addition, he admitted that he caused great bodily injury to one victim.

He will be sentenced on October 4, when he faces up to 13 years in custody.

In London, the LGBT Jewish community are invited to celebrate the festivals of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at the Beit Klal Yisrael Synagogue, Notting Hill Gate, W10, which is liberal affiliated and a member of the World Congress of Gay and Lesbian Jews organisations.

The synagogue, established in 1990, declares on its website: “We welcome all new members and participants, especially those who are distanced or estranged from many facets of contemporary Jewish community life.”

The eruv Rosh Hashanah service will begin on Friday 22nd September at 7pm.

The Rosh Hashanah service will take place on Saturday 23rd September at 10.30 am.

Kol Nidre will take place at the synagogue on Sunday 1st October at 7pm.

The Yom Kippur service will be on Monday 2nd October at 10.30am.

For more information, please visit www.beit-klal-yisrael.org.uk.

Meanwhile, in New York, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST) announced today that it will return to the Javits Center this year for its High Holy services.

CBST, the synagogue for the New York metropolitan area’s 200,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jews, will host Yom Kippur services on October 1st and 2nd.

The synagogue expects thousands to attend the services, held at the most important day of the Jewish year.

CBST’s Open Door Fund allows for anyone to attend the Javits services, regardless of religious affiliation or sexual orientation (although CBST does ask nonmembers to register for the services).

“Our Open Door Fund was created in response to the historic exclusion of gays and lesbians from participating openly in most Jewish communities. We wanted to make sure everyone was included in, and welcomed at, our services,” said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Head Rabbi of CBST. “The Fund allows us to dispense with the standard admission fees commonly required to attend High Holy services. As a result, thousands are able to celebrate the High Holy Days with CBST.”

“We are thrilled to return to the Javits Center for these important holidays,” said Ilene Sameth, Executive Director of CBST, “The combination of our powerful services, our Open Door policy and the Javits Center’s massive seating capacity means that CBST will house upwards of 3500 people for a single service.”

Services take place on the evenings of October 1-2, 2006. Kol Nidre service begins at 6pm at the Javits Center and the doors open at 5pm.

Members of the European Parliament (MEP) taking part at the launch agreed to draw up a declaration to stop homophobic behaviour in schools.

MEPs from the Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian Rights committed to take a lead on this initiative.

It seeks to develop an agenda on how young LGBT people in Europe should be protected against discrimination occurring in different spheres of life, after the International Lesbian and Gay Association’s-Europe (ILGA-Europe) and the International Gay and Lesbian Youth Organisation’s (IGLYO) joint publication on social exclusion of LGBT young people added pressure for MEPs to act.

This is none too soon after the joint efforts of gay charity Stonewall and the Mayor of London’s ‘Spell It Out’ anti-homophobic bullying campaign, aiming to tackle and stamp-out homophobic bullying in schools nationwide, launched in July.

Patricia Prendiville, director ILGA-Europe stated on the ILGA-Europe website: “We are happy that the concerns arising from the report are taken up seriously by the European Parliament. It became clear that <…> there is a clear need to protect young people from discrimination whilst in education. We will formulate concrete measures which will support LGBT young people in becoming full citizens of their societies.”

Over 700 young LGBT people from 37 European countries took part in the research, conclusively reporting back that LGBT young people face high amounts of prejudice and discrimination in every day life with 61.2% facing discrimination at school, 51.2% in family life, and 29.8% in their own circle of friends.

The report clearly demonstrates that discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity undermines young LGBT people’s capacity to be socially included and to become active citizens.

The report found need for further support to LGBT youth. “Young people first need to be able to build up their self-confidence, especially in those places where they are not accepted and their rights are not recognised. Like other young people, LGBT young people are the future work force of the European Union, that’s why the European Union should actively support LGBT young people,” Björn van Roozendaal, board member of IGLYO said.

James Seaton, 46, killed Jacqueline Queen at his flat and then enlisted the help of his brother John, 37, to dispose of her body.

The body, wrapped in bed sheets, was later found by a dog walker in East Finchley, North London, last November.

Mr Seaton told the court how he had become ‘besotted’ with Miss Queen, 39, but how she was the dominant partner in a fiery relationship.

The sequence of tragic events began when in September last year Mr Seaton reported to a community support officer that Miss Queen had run off with her lesbian lover. Miss Queen later told Mr Seaton that she was happy with her girlfriend and wanted him to stop contacting her.

Mr Seaton, according to prosecutor Brian Altman, ‘simply refused to believe it’ and attacked Miss Queen with a hammer and a knife in the lounge of his London flat. A knife wound to her neck severed an artery and cut through her spinal chord.

Seaton has admitted killing Miss Queen but claims he was suffering from an abnormality of mind at the time. He claims that she threatened him with a knife.

The trial continues.

Kaczynski, of the social conservative Law and Justice Party, made pledges upon taking office in December including making sure that Poland’s traditional Roman Catholic values were not overwhelmed by the general European liberal viewpoint.

Mr Kaczynski banned 2005′s gay pride celebrations in Warsaw after saying that homosexuals were “not a natural part of Poland’s culture,” and told gay people to repress their sexuality.

“I am aware that often, the things I say are not in line with the European correctness,” Kaczynski told The Associated Press in New York. “Even more, I am ascribed views that are not really mine.”

Kaczynski, a lawyer, has drawn EU criticism for privately stating he supports the death penalty in cases of heinous murders, although he acknowledged that no changes to this effect in polish law could override EU directives banning capital punishment.

Similarly, he has attracted controversy by speaking against same-sex marriage. He says property and inheritance issues for gay couples can be settled by lawyers.

“I do not support the turning back of the wheel of history,” Kaczynski said to The Associated Press in New York, stating he is for equal rights for women and is “not an enemy” of gay people. “I only think that we cannot say that there are two equal cultures,” he said. “If we said so, that would mean we are saying that our fate is extinction.”

“I have a certain fear here, but that does not mean that I intend to persecute anyone, that I intend to prevent him from living, from making a career, from working, from being a soldier.”

However, Dmitry Bartenev, a lawyer representing the groups, told the Russian news agency Novosti, “We intend to appeal shortly with the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg to vindicate our rights, and also to lodge a complaint with the presidium of the Moscow City Court. We believe the decision it has handed down is against the law,”

Gay Pride organizers first went to court in May after the Moscow officials refused to grant a parade license, citing concerns about violence.

Despite the court ruling upholding the ban, an attempted parade was held on May 27. However it was soon stopped when police arrested marchers and counter protestors.

Police then pushed the arrested gay marchers from the area, and into the hands of militant anti-gays who had gathered for a counter protest. As more than 1000 police attempted to clear the area at least one tear gas canister was set off by an anti-gay protestor.

Russia decriminalized homosexuality in 1993 following the fall of Communism. However, gay people still aren’t treated as well as their heterosexual counterparts.

Earlier in May police were forced to form a human chain when over 150 skinheads and Russian Orthodox Church supporters gathered outside a gay event at a Moscow club, holding a party/rally in conjunction with the Pride celebrations.

However, the skinheads became violent, hurling tomatoes and plastic bottles at the clubgoers, while members of the Church held religious icons and prayed.

One gay man was reportedly beaten unconscious.