All homosexuals should face stoning to death, a Muslim preacher of hate declared yesterday.

Anjem Choudary, the firebrand cleric who wants to see Britain ruled by Sharia law, said such a regime was the only way to fix the country's ills.

Under it, adulterers and homosexuals would be killed by stoning. Asked if that would include anybody - even a Cabinet minister such as Business Secretary Lord Mandelson - Choudary responded with an astonishing diatribe.

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Gauchos take Kate Kellaway on a week-long trail ride along Uruguay's stunning coast, and teach her how to herd cattle on a working farm

Our guide stood in front of a map of South America and pointed to Uruguay, squeezed next to Brazil and tiny in comparison. "Look, it is heart-shaped," she said. Patting herself on the chest, she added: "We have big hearts here." It was a line that from the wrong lips would have sounded contrived, but five days into one of the most wonderful riding experiences of my life, what Rosa said was incontrovertibly true. Uruguay, as well as being heart-shaped, is beautiful - a green and uncrowded land (with a population of only 3 million).

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Wed Mar 4, 2009 2:48pm EST — BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - In an effort to reduce the church's political influence, Argentine atheists and feminists are spearheading a drive to get people who were baptized Roman Catholic but disagree with the church's politics to formally renounce their faith.

The "Not in my Name" Internet campaign, also called Collective Apostasy, encourages people who are Catholic in name only to write to the bishops where they were baptized to officially register that they have left the church.

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Monday, March 16, 2009 — The travel industry seems to be engaged in a curious courtship. Its targets are gay travelers. During a recession, they apparently are the one group that doesn't change leisure habits too much, so airlines, hotels and tour operators are trying to win their business.

Courting gay customers is nothing new, of course. A few years ago, the creators of the popular Showtime series "Queer as Folk," Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, told me that, during their research for an episode, they had discovered that gay Americans had hundreds of billions of dollars of disposable income.

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Monday, March 16, 2009; Page A16 — THE UNITING American Families Act would allow gay and lesbian Americans and permanent residents to sponsor their foreign-born partners for legal residency in the United States. The bill, introduced last month in the Senate by Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and in the House by Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), would add "permanent partner" and "permanent partnership" after the words "spouse" and "marriage" in relevant sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act. If passed, it would right a gross unfairness.

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March 18, 2009 3:41 PM — ABC News' Kirit Radia reports: The Obama administration said today it will sign on to a United Nations declaration calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality around the world.

The move is a reversal of the position taken by the Bush administration, which refused to sign onto the document when it was first circulated late last year. It has already been endorsed by 66 other countries, including the entire European Union, Japan, Australia, and Mexico.

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The Army discharged 11 soldiers in January alone under its failed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy:

"Democratic Rep. Jim Moran said he has requested monthly updates from the Pentagon on the impact of the policy until it is repealed. In a statement released on Thursday, Moran said the discharged soldiers included an intelligence collector, a military police officer, four infantry personnel, a health care specialist, a motor-transport operator and a water-treatment specialist. 'How many more good soldiers are we willing to lose due to a bad policy that makes us less safe and secure?' asked Moran, a member of the House panel that oversees military spending."

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Argentina’s military decriminalized homosexuality and lifted its gay ban Feb. 27. Part of an overhaul of the military justice system, the change was approved by Parliament last year and took effect six months after passage.

U.S.-based Latino-issues blogger Andrés Duque called the move “one more LGBT rights development in a Latin American nation that leapfrogs over current U.S. policy.”
Gays in the U.S. military are required to remain in the closet under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Prior to that time, gays were not allowed in the U.S. military at all.

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