Hong Kong looking to ignore civil unions ruling
Australian state leaves LGBT people out of new hate speech bill
Australia: New South Wales state’s government has introduced a bill to stiffen penalties for inciting racial hatred, which has drawn criticism for excluding incitement to hatred against LGBT people. It’s particularly striking, given that the federal government just passed a hate crime law that is LGBT inclusive, and NSW last year passed a sweeping LGBT rights reform law.
Lithuania: The opposition Homeland Union is proposing to hold a final vote on the civil union bill during the spring session beginning in March, but it’s unclear if there will be enough votes for it to pass – even the HU is not clear how many of its own members will vote for it.
Mexico: Queretaro state is debating a law to recognize the LGBTQ community. I’m not clear what the actual effect of this will be.
Hong Kong: The legislative council is debating a law to “uphold” heterosexual marriage. The court of final appeal ordered the council to create some form of same-sex relationship recognition by Sept 2025, but there doesn’t appear to be much appetite for that in the legislature.
Kenya: The government is taking steps to better count and include intersex people in vital statistics and identification. But while this is going on, a segment of the intersex community is seeking to delink itself from the broader LGBTQI rights movement in the country, hoping that intersex people will gain legitimacy faster is decoupled from more controversial identities.
Kosovo: Elections this week returned a PM Kurti’s party with the largest number of seats in parliament but short of a majority, and opposition parties all appear unwilling to work with him to form a coalition. The situation is fluid right now, but its likely that this divide puts Kurti’s proposed civil code reform that included same-sex civil unions even further out of reach.
Romania: The centrist, pro-western president has resigned amid protests from far-right extremists. The constitutional courts suspended presidential elections last year amid evidence that Russia had rigged a social media campaign in favor of the far-right extremist candidate, who has only grown in popularity since.
Meanwhile, in the States
Trump has appointed openly gay man Richard Grenell as interim executive director of the Kennedy Center. Grenell was part of the first Trump administration and is also his current special envoy for special missions – whatever that means. Grenell is not believed to have a background in the arts or arts administration.
Oklahoma: State Republicans are advancing a bill affirming that prospective foster parents cannot be required to affirm a child’s LGBT identity as a condition of adoption/fostering.
Missouri: I’m not going to link to an ADF press release, but they’ve launched a federal lawsuit with the help of the state’s Republican attorney-general challenging a Jackson County (Kansas City) ordinance banning conversion therapy. Federal courts have split on whether conversion therapy bans are legal.
Two weeks ago, state Democrats introduced a bill to ban conversion therapy statewide; it has no hope of passing in the Republican-dominated legislature.