Other liberal attitudes expressed by the young people, gathered together from international scouting associations at a jamboree in Florence in 2006, include one quarter of the girls and 12 per cent of the boys reportedly saying that they would consider a same-sex experience.

More than 80 per cent of those questioned said they were happy to get drunk and almost half said they would smoke marijuana if offered.

Half the respondents said they believed in God, 39 per cent said they had the right to an abortion if they needed one, and 91 per cent said they download pirated material from the internet.

LGBT organisations were barred from establishing workshops at the jamboree, although most European scouting organisations have no prohibition on LGBT members.

The report on the attitudes of scouts in the 21st century was published, two years after it was compiled, by the Institute of the Innocents.

An Italian government-funded organisation, the institute carries out research into children, family life and children’s welfare.

“There was an open-mindedness about breaking the rules that is common among young people,” a spokesperson said.

Homosexuals are not restricted from membership or leadership positions in most European associations, including The Scout Association of the United Kingdom, Ring deutscher Pfadfinderverbände of Germany (German Scout Federation), and the Swedish Guide and Scout Association as well as Scouts Canada.

The Boy Scouts of America currently bans openly homosexual people from being members of the organisation, although there has been increasing pressure from local governments to change this.

Gay rights advocates argue that organisations who discriminate against people should not be entitled to artificially low rent on public properties or be given funding from the public budget.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued San Diego and the Boy Scouts in August 2000 on behalf of a lesbian couple and an agnostic couple, both with scouting-age sons.

They filed the lawsuit after the City Council voted to extend the group’s 50-year lease of Balboa Park camp space for another 25 years.

However, In June 2000 the US Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America has a constitutional right to exclude openly gay men from serving as troop leaders.

“It is not that surprising really,” reported Chiara Sapigni, president of the Italian Scouting Association, said of the findings of the 2006 poll.

“Scouts are not a niche group, but they are children of our age, and they share the same slim respect for the rules that non Scouts have.”

She added: “When Scouts are together, they share a set of ethical rules.

“The problem is their everyday lives. At school and in their free time, they behave just like their friends, and not just sexually. A significant part has little confidence in politicians, and does not respect the rules of society.”

Andrew Thorp, of the British Scout Association, told the Daily Telegraph: “We don’t feel that this survey is representative of the Scout movement in general.”

Founded by Robert Baden-Powell in England in 1907, the Scout movement has an estimated 38 million members in 216 countries.

In an interview to publicise the Feeling’s upcoming album, Join With Us, he told the Daily Record:

“The world would be a healthier place if people were more honest about their sexuality and the entertainment industry would be healthier if people were more honest full stop.

“The more of us who come out, the easier it is for others. My advice for anyone considering coming out would be to do it for themselves. It’s not fun living a lie.”

Gillespie Sells announced his homosexuality in attitude magazine in 2006.

He has also been open about having lesbian parents and a gay uncle.

In the article, Sells called his family a “kind of poster family for civil liberties organisations.

“The first time I discovered not everyone had two mums and a dad was when I went to school.”

The famously well-dressed star has recently admitted having a boyfriend, although as yet he has not discussed who that might be.

They have been together since New Year’s Eve 2007 he told Chart Rigger.

The Feeling were the most played band on UK radio in 2006 and Dan won the Stonewall Entertainer of the Year Award in 2007.

He studied music at the BRIT school in Croydon alongside the members of the rock band The Kooks and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

He is one of only a handful of successful British musicians in recent years to have come out.

Others include Will Young, Stephen Gately from Boyzone, George Michael and Ian ‘H’ Watkins of Steps fame.

Join With Us, was released on February 18th.

It is being held in cities such as Moscow, St Petersburg, Voronezh,

Krasnodar, Omsk, Petrozavodsk, Rostov-na-Donu, Samara, Tumen and Cheylabinsk.

During the week of March 25th-31st, there will be a series of seminars, panel discussions, meetings and film showings with debates.

In addition to this, more signatures for the Manifesto against Homophobia, that was started last year, will be sought.

However, such events are not welcomed by all.

There are reports that many on the far-right and among Russia’s conservative religious community are focused on disrupting the events, even going to the point of refusing to rule out acts

of criminal behaviour.

An email, sent to PinkNews.co.uk, states:

“Conducting these kind of activities that flagrantly violate the rights of the citizens of our country to freedom and their moral development, could result in clashes between extremists

and true believers, as well as other opponents of sodomy.

“We have started preparations for the breakdown of these activities with volunteers in all the above cities.

“Hopefully you will wisely stop holding these kind of satanic activities on the territory of our country.”

Russian society as well as the government are notoriously homophobic in character. In past year the Mayor of Moscow has refused to allow gay pride marches, referring to them as Satanic.

LGBT activists regularly face intimidation and violence from far right groups who see the LGBT community as a ‘threat’ to Russia’s national security.

“Russian society as a whole embodies strong negative attitudes and intolerance towards men and women of homosexual orientation based on prejudice and misinformation,” a statement on the Russian Week Against Homophobia website reads.

“It leads to widespread violation of human rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT), as well as to hate crimes – physical violence based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Low levels of sex education is the ground for promoting fear, hatred and extremely fascist ideas by organisations and public figures of particular kind.

“That’s why homophobia is dangerous not only for LGBT themselves, but for the entire society, where the tendency for suppressing any individuality is being instilled.”

Details of the week, for all those who wish to participate, can be found at here.

It is being organised by the Russian LGBT Network, the Youth Network against Racism and Intolerance, the Movement of civil actions GROZA, the Russian HIV/AIDS Prevention Network and LGBT Organisations Raduzhniy Dom, Krug-Karelia and Favorit.

Labour are generally considered to be more liberal than the winning Nationalist Party (PN), who now remain in power.

In a general election earlier this month the PN, led by Lawrence Gonzi, won the most seats in the National House Of Representatives.

However, the difference between victory for the Nationalists and the Malta Labour Party (MLP) was decided by a few thousand votes.

For a decade the Green Party in Malta, Alternattiva Demokratika (AD), and their leader Harry Vasallo, have challenged the two-party system in Malta and pushed for gay civil rights.

But the party appears to have split the progressive vote in Malta, with some worrying that he may have helped hand the election to PN, who won 143,468 votes or 49.34%. They now have 35 seats in parliament.

The MLP won 141,888 votes (48.79%) and gained four seats, giving them 34.

Alternattiva Demokratika’s vote was 3,810, an increase of 2,681 on the 2003 election but still only 1.31% of the vote and not enough to win a seat.

The problem among the progressive camp, it has been claimed, is that half of voters desired change while the other half did not want Alfred Sant, the leader of the MLP, to become Prime Minister.

Malta’s gay community accounts for about 5% of the voting population.

Generally considered to be MLP supporters, many decided to vote for the AD.

Mr Vasallo said before the elections that the recognition of gay rights would be a step forward, according to the Times of Malta.

He said he was supporting the petition organised by the Malta Gay Rights Movement and signed by more than 1,000 people, asking for legal recognition of same-sex couples, a homophobic bullying strategy for the island nation’s schools and new laws targeting homophobic and transphobic crimes.

In addition to this, Dr Patrick Attard, Malta’s only gay political candidate ran a tireless campaign for AD.

He and others ran an online campaign that targeted the gay vote on popular networking sites like Facebook and Gaydar, which are popular with the Maltese gay community.

AD supporters do not concede that they played the spoiler in the March 8th election.

But since MLP lost by such a narrow margin, less than one percent of the vote, some in the MLP are certain to feel that they lost because they could not secure the gay vote.

In 2004, Malta banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation after the Malta Gay Rights Movement lobbied for the measure to be included in an Employment Relations Act.

However, like many of the ‘new’ bloc of EU member states, Malta is a

conservative religious society, with 98% of the population identifying as Roman Catholics, and although homosexuality is legal, there remains significant prejudice.

In 2000 the PN government was criticised by gay rights groups for openly homophobic statements condemning EU proposals to treat gay people equally.

According to a December 2006 Eurobarometer survey, only 18% of the Maltese population support gay marriage, and there is significant prejudice against the LGBT community.

The Scandinavian country already allows gay and lesbian couples to enter into civil partnerships, but LGBT rights groups have long complained the law does not go far enough.

The Norwegian National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation (LLH) said the current arrangements created two classes of citizenship – one for heterosexuals and another for the LGBT community.

In 2004 a similar law, which proposed to abolish the system of civil

partnerships and replace it with one single gender neutral marriage law for all citizens, was rejected by the Norwegian parliament.

The new legislation, while not full equal marriage, amends the definition of civil marriage in Norway to make it gender neutral.

The bill, if passed, would replace a 1993 law that gives gays the right to enter civil unions similar to marriage, but refuses them the right to church weddings or to be considered as adoptive parents.

As well as more equal partnership rights, it would expand the provision of parenting rights.

For example, the new legislation would allow a lesbian who is married to another women who becomes pregnant through in vitro fertilisation to have all the rights of parenthood “from the moment of conception.”

The legislation additionally states that in cases of adoption, both partners, gay or lesbian, would have complete joint parenting rights.

Family Issues minister Anniken Huitfeldt in introducing the bill called it “an historic step towards equality.”

She also had a message for some members of Parliament who claimed the bill would weaken tradition marriage.

“The new law won’t weaken marriage as an institution,” Huitfeldt told Parliament.

“Rather, it will strengthen it. Marriage won’t be worth less

because more can take part in it.”

Like parliament, the three-party coalition that currently governs Norway was split on key points of the new law.

Minister of Local Government Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa and Transport Minister Liv Signe Navarsete said they could not support the right to assisted pregnancies for lesbian couples, but endorsed the remainder of the bill.

Parliament’s second-largest bloc, the Party of Progress, and the smaller Christian Democratic Party both immediately said they would oppose the bill.

About 85 percent of Norway’s 4.7 million people are registered as members of the state Lutheran Church of Norway, although far fewer are active.

Norway has historically had a tolerant attitude towards the LGBT community and has championed LGBT rights on the international stage.

Representatives from Norway delivered a short oral statement at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006 in support of a resolution condemning human rights abuses involving LGBT victims.

The statement dealt with the most severe human rights abuses , such as violence, torture and death, directed against people because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

The ad, aired on the Canadian TV channel CTV, featured a man talking about how a lot of gay people actually don’t want to be gay and that it’s possible to change.

“You hear a lot about gay rights, gay marriage and the gay lifestyle being taught in our public schools for children, but what many people don’t realise, and seldom hear, is that many homosexuals don’t want to be homosexual.

“What many who are struggling with homosexuality don’t realise is that they can change. I should know – for 13 years, I used to be one.”

LGBT activists in Canada launched an online campaign for the removal of the advert, utilising social networking sites such as myspace and Facebook.

In response CTV removed the ad straight away and has since apologised to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans community.

A spokesperson for the channel said:

“It was something that was taken very seriously at the highest levels of CTV. It is completely against all of our own codes.”

Ex-gay movements believe that through prayer and therapy the alteration of a person’s sexual orientation is possible.

This position is consistently rejected by all US leading mental health professional groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Pediatric Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.

Many people who go through the process end up not as functioning heterosexuals but as homosexuals pushed into mental breakdowns and/or other mental health problems.

Some have taken to suicide in an attempt to end the confusion caused

by the ex-gay programmes.

Szymon Niemiec, founder of the Polish Equality Parade, needs 75 000 euros in donations in order to establish the facility in Warsaw.

Mr Niemiec said: “The Queer Central Station will be a place where everyone is welcome.

“It is our desire to encourage artists worldwide to contribute to a special gallery with periodical exhibitions.

“We envisage a small shop that will include literature about homosexuals and other interesting topics and perhaps other items.”

Poland is a very conservative Roman Catholic country, where for many people the teachings of the Church are still the sole basis of moral grounding.

The country has had a poor record on LGBT rights since joining the EU in 2004.

The election of the homophobic Lech Kaczynski as President in 2005 and the elevation of his twin brother Jaroslaw to the office of Prime Minister that year hampered efforts by gay groups and the EU to push through legal protections for LGBT people.

The brothers are members of the Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc), a political party with deeply held homophobic attitudes.

In 2005 Lech Kaczynski, as Mayor of the city of Warsaw, refused to issue a permit for a gay Pride parade.

A short while later he issued a permit for a “normality parade,” which was denounced by the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) as a “demonstration whose main objective was an incitation to hate and intolerance toward LGBT people.”

Amnesty International has also expressed concern about a climate of intolerance in Poland against the LGBT community, characterised by the banning of public events organised by the LBGT community, openly homophobic language used by some highly placed politicians, and incitement of homophobic hatred by some right-wing groups.

Amnesty International also expressed concern over the recent abolition of the government office responsible for promotion of equal treatment for sexual minorities.

The removal of Jaroslaw Kaczynski from power late last year and his replacement with Donald Tusk as Prime Minister as leader of the Civic Platform (Platform Obywatelska) did little to improve the Polish government’s attitude to gay rights.

In December 2007 the European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling upholding its previous verdict against the Polish Government and the ban by the Warsaw city authorities of the city’s Gay Pride in 2005, declaring such a ban to be illegal.

Despite this ruling, in January of this year Civic Platform declared the ruling void in Poland.

It is hoped that the establishment of a permanent centre in Warsaw will act as a visible sign of the LGBT rights movement in Poland that will act as a teaching tool and a rallying point for the community.

Donations can be made at www.friendsofszymon.org

On Friday, April 25th several thousand schools across the United States will be observing the “Day of Silence” (DOS).

The American Family Association claimed that “DOS is a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.”

The AFA is better known for its boycotts of companies that recognise and support gay staff or “promote” positive images of gay people in their advertising.

Recent targets included IKEA, Ford and WalMart.

Now the AFA has attacked the Day of Silence as “leading the students to believe that every person who identifies as a homosexual, bisexual or cross-dresser is a victim of ongoing, unrelenting harassment and hate.

“Students are taught that homosexuality is a worthy lifestyle, homosexuality has few or no risks, and individuals are born

homosexual and cannot change.

“Those who oppose such teaching are characterised as ignorant and hateful bigots.”

DOS is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network

(GLSEN).

GLSEN has become one of the main groups seeking to protect students in schools from homophobia and to publicise nationally and internationally homophobic incidents in American schools.

It is responsible for organising the Day of Silence, which this year takes on special significance because of the murder of Lawrence King on 12th February 2008.

Lawrence, who was fifteen at the time of his death, was shot in the head by another student, allegedly because of his sexual orientation and because he sometimes wore feminine clothing.

In response to the shooting, Judy Shepard, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, who herself lost a son to a homophobic attack, said:

“I am deeply saddened by the terrible news about the shooting of Lawrence King. My prayers go out to all of Lawrence’s friends and family.

“This terrible incident underscores the fact that we cannot let hate go unchecked in our schools and communities. Our young people need our direction and guidance to prevent this type of crime from happening.

“I urge all parents and teachers to educate their children and students about acceptance, understanding and compassion.”

He has amassed a sizable fortune in the United States, reported to be in the region of $25 million (£12.7m).

His projects there include books, a home furnishings line and etiquette classes as well as presenting a number of popular

television programmes such as American Princess.

It was claimed yesterday that Burrell, 49, visits gay saunas hunting for young men to bed behind his wife’s back.

He was last night deciding on what strategy to take to deal with the allegations and safeguard his wealth.

Paul has reportedly made in £8m through publishing two books about the princess and £3m for various television appearances.

He has made £2m from speeches and his furniture and wine ventures have netted him £3m.

His DVD and merchandise projects have earned him £2m and he is thought to have earned up to £1.5m from magazine deals.

Yesterday’s allegations come as the former butler to Diana, Princess of Wales is being recalled to the inquest into her death.

The Sun newspaper reported that they had a tape of Burrell admitting that he had lied at the hearing as well as saying that he had thrown in “a few red herrings.”

If the allegations prove true Burrell could face a lengthy custodial sentence.

Yesterday the News Of The World claimed that Burrell, who lives with Maria, 53, and their sons Alexander, 23, and Nicholas, 19, in Farndon, Cheshire, trawls gyms and saunas looking for sex with men are not the first to be levelled against him.

In 2002 Australian Greg Pead claimed the butler had a passionate affair with him in the early 1980s.

Entertainer Michael Barrymore, who was friends with Diana, once claimed Paul tried to seduce him in 1997.

Equal Ground, an LGBT rights organisation based in Sri Lanka, has joined forces with the Sri Lankan society of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) to express “their deep regret and shock” at the article entitled Treating alternative forms of sexual expression.

The article gives pointers in how to identify homosexuals, claiming that “most homosexuals tend to be alike in certain behaviours and they generally choose certain occupations like hairdressing, fashion designing and modelling.

“In Sri Lankan culture, homosexual behaviour is not an expected normal behaviour and most parents of adolescents who suspect their children of having homosexual relationships refer them to a

physician or psychologist for remedial therapy.”

Dr Perera, a key ‘expert’ used by the paper says treatment should include: “counselling, cognitive therapy and behaviour modification therapy.”

In response to the article, Equal Ground has sent a letter to the editor of The Island pointing out the inaccuracies of the article as well as the deeply offensive and potentially dangerous claims that it makes.

“Uninformed articles such as these are extremely damaging to the dignity and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender

individuals in our community,” the group wrote.

“It is of paramount importance that medical professionals, psychologists and mental health workers keep themselves up to

date on the constant developments in their field.

“As this specific article illustrates, the inability to do so may actually lead to greater suffering and trauma for many.”

In a separate letter Aritha Wickramasinghe of the Sri Lankan society at the LSE said:

“The Society affirms its finding of the article as seriously

discriminatory and dangerous to public peace.”

Last year another Sri Lankan newspaper, Divaina, was accused of similar inaccuracies and using scare tactics when they published an article talking about homosexuality and effeminate men in Sri Lanka and the problems they face as they get older.

It also made claims about the number of homosexuals in Sri Lanka who become involved in commercial sex work to make a living.

Divaina, a Sinhala language newspaper is a sister title of the English language The Island.

Homosexual acts between men, regardless of age, are prohibited in Sri Lanka, with a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment.

The law is not enforced and there have been no prosecutions for 50 years, but in a largely Buddhist country homosexuality is seen as a sin.

Further details can be found on the Equal Ground website.

Rob McDowall, the creator of the petition, told PinkNews.co.uk:

“Being gay doesn’t prevent me from paying tax, using public transport or working in a responsible position, full time, so why should it prevent me from giving the gift of life?”

“The culture of binge drinking, multiple sexual partners and the acceptance of “the male player” stereotype is all playing part in the massive increase of HIV and AIDS amongst the heterosexual community.”

The Scottish Blood Transfusion Service maintains that it is not a question of being gay or bisexual but the risk involved.

Mr McDowall maintains that this is ‘nonsense’ “blood has no sexual preference and being gay does not mean that you sleep about and have serial sexual partners.”

The petition has been supported by MSP Ross Finnie, member for the West of Scotland.

He has submitted a series of questions to the Scottish Executive’s Health minister asking her to seek a review of the EU blood directives that prevent gay and bisexual men from giving blood in Scotland and whether preventing gay and bisexual men from giving blood is necessary to ensure a safe blood supply.

Mr Finnie wants to know if the Executive has concerns about the strictness of the rules applicable to heterosexual blood donors.

The UK’s National Blood Service (NBS) bars men who have had sex with other men from donating blood, even if they used a condom.

A statement on their website says: “It is specific behaviours, rather than being gay, which places gay men at increased risk of HIV infection.

“Safer sex will keep most gay men free from infection, however research shows that allowing gay men as a group to donate blood would increase the risk of HIV infected blood entering the blood supply.

“Abolishing the rule for gay men would increase the risk of HIV infected donations entering the blood supply in England by about five times, and changing the rule to allow gay men to donate one year after they last had sex with another man would increase the risk by 60 per cent.”

Mr McDowall has set up a group on the Bebo social networking site to publicise his cause and there is also a group on Facebook entitled Donation not Discrimination.

“The NBS policy in the UK is discriminatory, offensive and outdated,” he said.

“More work should be put into creating a behavioural profile of each individual donor and taking individual sexual behaviour and habits into consideration. Not a blanket ban, that, is not the answer to the massive shortage in blood stocks.”

If you would like to sign the petition you can do so here.

It is facing closure after its Arts Council funding was recently withdrawn.

A high-profile fundraising campaign is under way to replace the £250,000 annual grant and rescue the venue, which is located just off Tottenham Court Road in London.

Michael Nyman, perhaps best known for his score of the 1993 film The Piano, has set the “lustful sonnets” of I Sonetti Lussuriosi, by Renaissance poet Pietro Aretino, to music.

He will perform the work, accompanied by Marie Angel, the Australian-born soprano, on 6th April.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, a cult orchestra of all-singing, all-strumming, all-plucking ukulele players who last appeared at The Drill Hall in December 2006, will perform on 4th April.

Julie Parker, artistic director and chief executive of the Drill Hall, said that the funding cut could mean there will be no new lesbian or gay work at the venue.

In autumn 2007 the theatre celebrated its 30th anniversary as the UK’s leading producer and presenter of lesbian, gay and queer performance.

“The Drill Hall is a unique building: the staff are determined that our important work, especially our education programme tackling homophobic bullying in schools, will survive,” she said.

Originally built in 1882 the Drill Hall has an established international reputation for championing the work of new artists, performers and theatre practitioners.

Its patrons include choreographer Matthew Bourne, comedian Julian Clary and Harry Potter actress Miriam Margolyes.

Drill Hall website.

Anthropologist Mary Lewis believes her team have positively identified the body of Sir Hugh Dispenser the Younger, a man once described as “a sodomite, even it is said, with the King.”

Edward, who reigned between 1307 and 1327, had a string of gay relationships and has long provided material for writers and film makers alike.

The homosexual relationship between the King and Piers Gaveston has been the subject of several books and works of fiction.

Gaveston met an untimely end, stabbed to death by the King’s enemies.

Sir Hugh Dispenser suffered an even worse fate than Gaveston. A notorious criminal, he was hung, drawn and quartered.

“This form of public execution was high theatre that aimed to demonstrate the power of government to the masses,” Miss Lewis told The Telegraph.

“High treason dictated that the perpetrator should suffer more than one death.

“Dating of the Hulton Abbey skeleton indicates that he died no later that 1385, when this brutal and very public form of execution was handed out only to the most notorious political prisoners.

“This suggests that the skeleton at Hulton Abbey was a well-known political figure.

“If the remains are those of Sir Hugh Despenser the Younger, then this is the first time such an execution victim has been identified.”

Gay director Derek Jarman’s 1991 film Edward II portrayed the complicated relationships between Gaveston, the King and his wife Queen Isabella.

The Serpentine Gallery is hosting a retrospective of Derek Jarman’s work from the 23rd February to the 13th April.

Curated by artist Isaac Julien, it will showcase many elements of Jarman’s artistic work both in terms of painting and film

Details about the exhibition can be found on on their website or by calling 020 7402 6075.