Pennsylvania House passes bill to delete same-sex marriage ban

Malawi court upholds sodomy law

Over at the Los Angeles Blade, I have my latest “Out in the World” column, covering news from Latvia, France, India, Georgia, and Hong Kong.

I also have another story about the celebrations and controversies that rocked Pride Festivals in San Francisco, New York, and Toronto this weekend.

Around the World

Latvia: The civil union law officially went into effect on Monday. Go get civil unioned, Latvia!

Malawi: On Friday, the high court ruled against two people seeking to overturn the country’s “unnatural sex” laws, apparently directing the accused to petition parliament to change the laws. The ruling is due to be published by the end of next week, so we’ll know better then how the court came to this ruling and whether there are avenues for appeal. This is of course a major setback after several other courts in southern Africa struck down sodomy laws recently, notably Namibia a week earlier, Mauritius last year, and Botswana in 2019.

Namibia: The government has tabled a bill to define “spouse” as a person of the opposite sex. It’s not clear if this would comply with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling requiring the government to recognize foreign same-sex marriages. But this does seem to be the government’s belated reaction to the ruling and parliament’s subsequent passage of a much more stringent anti-LGBT bill that criminalizes same-sex marriage and advocacy for LGBT rights, which has been awaiting a presidential signature or veto since. Seems like the government is trying to appear to be making a compromise with anti-LGBT forces to dump the much worse bill.

Ecuador: The first known case of a challenge to maternity in a same-sex marriage has occurred, as two lesbians dispute the parentage of a child born via IVF. The case likely arises in part due to the lack of clear laws around same-sex parenting.

Updates

Mexico: Last year, I reported for Xtra about how laws in several states bar Mexicans living with HIV from getting married. Shortly after it was published, Sinaloa repealed its ban on marriage for people who have HIV in July 2023, but I didn’t hear about this until now. That leaves eight states with bans: Chiapas, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Querétaro, and Quintana Roo. The Supreme Court has already ruled these laws unconstitutional, but they remain on the books and continue to cause problems for people living with HIV.

Quintana Roo updated its civil code last December but didn’t fully eliminate the requirement that marriage partners provide a medical certificate stating they have no chronic or incurable illness, which upset the main HIV awareness organization in Mexico. However, my reading of the law is that it also says that in the event a partner is ill, the certificate can just have information on how to prevent any possible transmission (which is the new section added in the reform). So, I think QR should be removed from the list too, but I’m not an HIV activist in Mexico.

Meanwhile, in the States…

Pennsylvania: A bill to repeal the unconstitutional ban on same-sex marriage from the statutes passed the house on a bipartisan vote yesterday. The bill is unlikely to get touched by the Republican-controlled senate, so it’s not likely to pass unless Democrats take the senate in November, which is a top target.

But I could be wrong! About 1/3 of the house Republican caucus voted for it, and Republicans may wish to neutralize the issue ahead of the election, given that the bill doesn’t really change anything. Two years ago, state Republicans agreed to remove “homosexuality” from the state criminal code sections on obscenity, so it’s possible.

Illinois: The town of Normal updated its human relations code to ban discrimination based on gender identity, while also expanding the meaning of race and sexual orientation under the code. The revised code matches what is already state law.

Idaho: The city of Coeur d’Alene passed an LGBT-inclusive hate crimes ordinance yesterday. Idaho’s state hate crimes law does not cover anti-LGBT motivated crimes.

Florida: The city council of Jacksonville will be considering a hate crimes ordinance on July 15.