By Christopher Cappiello

U.K. Anti-Discrimination Bill Upheld

Following weeks of protests from conservative and religious groups in London, the United Kingdom’s House of Lords upheld new laws banning businesses from refusing service to customers based on their sexuality.

The Sexual Orientation Regulations were to take effect in Northern Ireland in January 2007 and in England and Wales in April. The new laws prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the provision of goods, facilities, services and education. Critics charge that the new measure will force small business owners to choose between their faith and the law.

“The regulations make it possible for homosexual activists to sue people who disagree with a homosexual lifestyle because of their religious beliefs,” Lord Morrow of the Democratic Unionist Party, and an outspoken opponent of the new laws, told BBC News. “The regulations threaten to override the conscience and free speech of Christians and others who object to homosexual practice.”

The Labor Party’s Lord Smith disagreed. “I am somewhat puzzled by the arguments that have been advanced,” he said during the debate in the upper house of Parliament. “It seems to me, in my simplistic way, that what [the opponents of the regulations] are arguing for is quite simply the right to discriminate and the right to harass. And those arguments are being made in the name of Christianity.”

A group of evangelical Christian lawyers has petitioned the queen to intervene and persuade Prime Minister Tony Blair to drop the regulations. It is widely believed that the queen would not get involved, but the petition is a sign of the deep schism caused by the new laws.

UN Says 1,000 Children a Day Get HIV

In a report that shows some signs of progress in the global battle against the spread of HIV/AIDS, the United Nation’s Children’s Fund grimly announced that more than 1,000 children worldwide were infected with HIV every day in 2006, The Associated Press reports.

The UN estimates that 2.3 million children under 15 are infected with HIV, and that more than 15 million children under 18 have lost at least one parent to AIDS. UNICEF spokesman Patrick McCormick told Voice of America that, in spite of the statistics, most people don’t consider AIDS a children’s disease.

“It was not in people’s thinking,” he said. “This was a disease of early 20s, late 20s. It was a disease of sex workers, of truck drivers. Even if there were 15 million AIDS orphans wandering around, it still was not perceived as something which was affecting children, young people.”

The Jan. 16 report states that most children are infected during or immediately after birth. Half will die within two years without the necessary treatment. “Ten percent of the children at present have access to that sort of treatment because drug companies do not make child formulations in the right quantity, and/or they are not getting out in isolated places,” McCormick said.

The report also found that several African nations—including Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa and Rwanda—have greatly improved access to treatment for mothers. In addition, HIV prevalence is on the decline in some areas, including parts of Botswana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe, primarily due to safer-sex practices among young people.

In October 2005, UNICEF launched the global Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS campaign to highlight the specific risks to young people affected by HIV, whether they are infected, orphaned or both.

Swedish Judge Nixes Lesbian Adoptions

A Swedish judge rejected attempts by two lesbian women to adopt a biological child of their respective partners, ruling that such an action would hinder the children’s fundamental right to know both biological parents, an important feature of Swedish law.

“There is no father, only a donor. That is why I’m trying to adopt,” one of the prospective adoptive mothers told The Local, an English-language Swedish news service.

Both mothers were artificially inseminated in Denmark, where anonymity is guaranteed. In addition, both couples have registered their civil partnerships and have been approved by social services agencies for adoption.

“It feels like the court is somehow trying to punish the women because they did something that is contrary to the interests of the child,” Dr. Anna Singer, a family law specialist at Uppsala University, told The Local. “Swedish law says that adoptions should be decided solely in the interests of the child. In these cases, who would be better parents than these two women? Certainly not the fathers—it is, in any case, not possible to find out who they are,” she said.

One of the couples said they are considering an appeal.

Mexican State Passes Gay Union Law

Legislators in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila approved a measure Jan. 11 recognizing same-sex unions and granting registered couples many of the benefits of marriage, AP reports. The law passed the state Congress in a 20-13 vote, and Coahuila Gov. Humberto Moreira has indicated he will sign the bill.

“It’s more like a civil marriage,” gay rights activist Silvia Solis told Reuters. Among the rights extended to same-sex couples are important social security benefits, a key demand of Mexican gay rights activists.

The law comes two months after Mexico City passed the country’s first same-sex unions law in November. While neither measure allows for marriage or adoption rights, both bills afford gay couples pension and property rights as well as critical rights in terms of inheritance and health care choices.

The Coahuila law was backed by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, but the conservative National Action Party of Mexican President Felipe Calderon is against such measures. In other parts of heavily Roman Catholic Latin America, same-sex unions are recognized only in Buenos Aires—Argentina’s capital region—and the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The state of Coahuila was once part of a Mexican state with Texas before the United States annexed much of its southwestern region in 1845.