Singapore allows same-sex fathers to adopt their surrogate son

In a landmark decision, Singapore’s highest court has allowed a gay couple to adopt their son, who was conceived through surrogacy in the United States.

  • Singapore gay

The case began in December 2014 when fathers “James” and “Shawn” applied for James – whose sperm was used for the assisted reproduction – to adopt their son, “Noel”, hoping to remove the stigma of illegitimacy. Their real names have not been disclosed.

James and Shawn, who heard the news at 10.25am through their lawyers, were elated. They had gone to work as usual, despite knowing the judgment would be released on Monday morning.

“It was business as usual because we didn’t want to get our hopes too high,” said James, who is a doctor.

Shawn works in the marketing industry. Both men are 45, of Chinese ethnicity, and are Singaporeans. The men have been in a relationship for 13 years, living together since 2003.

James said the family was happy and relieved that the Court of Appeal has allowed the adoption of Noel.

“The fight to raise our family in Singapore has been a long and difficult journey,” he said. “We hope that the adoption will increase the chances of our son to be able to stay in Singapore with his family. His grandparents and us really want Singapore to be the home of our family. Our family will celebrate this significant milestone.”His grandparents and us really want Singapore to be the home of our family. Our family will celebrate this significant milestoneJames, father

The process was treated as single-parent adoption and will confer to James sole parental rights and responsibility for the child. Both fathers hoped this will make it easier for Noel, now four years old, to acquire Singapore citizenship. The South China Morning Post in January reported on the family’s legal limbo. Noel had been rejected for citizenship and at the time the fathers applied for his adoption, Noel was on a dependent’s pass that has since been renewed every six months.

Last year, the couple had their bid rejected by the Family Justice Courts one day after Christmas, although District Judge Shobha Nair said Noel would be provided for, with or without an adoption order.

By Kok Xinghui, TheStar.com, December 17, 2018

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Cambodia’s surrogate mothers go free after agreeing to raise Chinese children but some see it as a mixed blessing

  • Cambodia banned commercial surrogacy in 2016, and police in June raided two flats where Sophea and 31 other surrogate mothers were being cared for in Phnom Penh
  • They were charged the following month with violating human-trafficking laws, but authorities released them on bail last week, under the condition they raise the children themselves
Cambodia

Sophea was eight months pregnant when Cambodian police told her she would have to keep the baby that was never meant to be hers – and forfeit the US$10,000 she was promised for acting as a surrogate for a Chinese couple.

Cambodia banned commercial surrogacy in 2016, and police in June raided two flats where Sophea and 31 other surrogate mothers were being cared for in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.

They were charged the following month with violating human-trafficking laws, but authorities released them on bail last week, under the condition they raise the children themselves.

Campaigners say Cambodia’s surrogacy crackdown is unlikely to end the trade as poverty means many women will continue to risk arrest for the chance to earn life-changing sums of money.

For some of the newly freed women, keeping their baby is a burden as they struggle to get by. For others, it is a relief.

Despite the financial loss, 24-year-old Sophea said she was happy the authorities intervened, and that her family had welcomed her baby boy.

South China Morning Post, December 11, 2018

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Taiwan voters reject same-sex marriage

Taiwan voters rejected same-sex marriage in a referendum Saturday, dealing a blow to the LGBT community and allies who hoped the island would become the first place in Asia to allow same-sex unions.

In Taiwan, three referendum questions initiated by groups that opposed marriage equality passed, while those put forth by same-sex marriage advocates did not.Taiwan
 
For instance, the majority vote was yes on a question that asked, “Do you agree that Civil Code regulations should restrict marriage to being between a man and a woman?”
Voters, meanwhile, rejected a question put forth by LGBT activists that asked if civil code marriage regulations “should be used to guarantee the rights of same-sex couples to get married.”
Amnesty International Taiwan’s Acting Director Annie Huang called the result “a bitter blow and a step backwards for human rights” on the island.
 
“However, despite this setback, we remain confident that love and equality will ultimately prevail,”Huang said in a statement. “The result must not be used as an excuse to further undermine the rights of LGBTI people. The Taiwanese government needs to step up and take all necessary measures to deliver equality and dignity for all, regardless of who people love.”
 
By Hira Humayun and Susannah Cullinane, CNN.com, November 25. 2018
 
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Dutch Clinics to Start Offering Surrogacy to Gay Couples

Gay couples who want to have a child through a surrogate mother can do so at Dutch clinics from next year, according to a survey by television program De Monitor. Until now that has been impossible in the Netherlands due to strict regulations, newspaper AD reports.

At least two Dutch clinics will start offering surrogacy to gay couples next year – MC Kinderwens in Leiderdorp and Nij Geertgen clinic in Elsendorp. In Leiderdorp the surrogate mother must also donate the egg. In Elsendorp the surrogate and egg donor may be different people. 

“I think it’s too crazy for words that gay couples, but also women with oncological complaints for example, have to go abroad to fulfill their desire to have children”, Nij Geertgen director Marc Scheijven said to De Monitor. “While we have all medical and technical experience in house.”

By Janene Pieters on November 13, 2018 nltimes.nl

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In Scottish schools, students will be required to learn about LGBTI history

Just 18 years ago, it was still illegal in Scotland to “intentionally promote homosexuality” in schools.

Now, the Scottish government will mandate all state schools introduce a curriculum that explains the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) activism. Schools will also educate students on the use of LGBTI terminology and discuss ways to address homophobia.Scottish

“Our education system must support everyone to reach their full potential,” Scottish Deputy First Minister John Swinney said Thursday. “The recommendations I have accepted will not only improve the learning experience of our LGBTI young people, they will also support all learners to celebrate their differences, promote understanding and encourage inclusion.”

The move came after a campaign called Time for Inclusive Education presented a series of suggestions to the Scottish government. According to a 2016 research report on the Scottish LGBTI community published by the group, “90% of LGBT people have experienced homophobia, biphobia or transphobia at school.” The same research found that 27 percent of LGBTI people had attempted suicide — some more than once.

Scottish ministers adopted all of the recommendations from the campaign’s working group. The Guardian reported there will not be options to opt out of the curriculum, which will be interspersed throughout various subjects.

Swinney said this makes Scotland “the first country in the world to have LGBTI-inclusive education embedded within the curriculum.”

In recent years, Scotland has reckoned with its legacy of discrimination against the LGBTI community.

In a unanimous vote in June, Scottish lawmakers chose to pardon men who were previously charged with participating in homosexual acts. The BBC reported at the time that sexual relations between two men was decriminalized in Scotland in 1981. Some of the acts that were previously considered illegal and for which gay men are now being pardoned included consensual sex in private, or even acts such as kissing in public. In some cases, men perceived as flirting with another man could also have been charged.

Thousands of men were to be pardoned after the law was passed in June. But when it comes to the LGBTI community, there are still divisions within Scottish society, especially among religious leaders.

Washington Post, by Siobhan O’Grady – Nomvemb er 9, 2018

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Major Climate Change Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040

A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.”

The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population.climate change

The report “is quite a shock, and quite concerning,” said Bill Hare, an author of previous I.P.C.C. reports and a physicist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit organization. “We were not aware of this just a few years ago.” The report was the first to be commissioned by world leaders under the Paris agreement, the 2015 pact by nations to fight global warming.

The authors found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty. Previous work had focused on estimating the damage if average temperatures were to rise by a larger number, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), because that was the threshold scientists previously considered for the most severe effects of climate change.

Avoiding the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years, said the authors, who estimate that the damage would come at a cost of $54 trillion. But while they conclude that it is technically possible to achieve the rapid changes required to avoid 2.7 degrees of warming, they concede that it may be politically unlikely.

For instance, the report says that heavy taxes or prices on carbon dioxide emissions — perhaps as high as $27,000 per ton by 2100 — would be required. But such a move would be almost politically impossible in the United States, the world’s largest economy and second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China. Lawmakers around the world, including in China, the European Union and California, have enacted carbon pricing programs.

New York Times – October 8, 2018 by Coral Davenport

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Trump Administration to Deny Visas to Same-Sex Partners of Diplomats, U.N. Officials

The new policy will insist they be married to obtain visas —even if they’re from countries that criminalize gay marriage.

The Trump administration on Monday began denying visas to same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats and United Nations employees, and requiring those already in the United States to get married by the end of the year or leave the country.visa

The U.S. Mission to the U.N. portrayed the decision—which foreign diplomats fear will increase hardships for same-sex couples in countries that don’t recognize same-sex marriage—as an effort to bring its international visa practices in line with current U.S. policy. In light of the landmark 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the U.S. extends diplomatic visas only to married spouses of U.S. diplomats.

“Same-sex spouses of U.S. diplomats now enjoy the same rights and benefits as opposite-sex spouses,” the U.S. mission wrote in a July 12 note to U.N.-based delegations. “Consistent with [State] Department policy, partners accompanying members of permanent missions or seeking to join the same must generally be married in order to be eligible” for a diplomatic visa.

But critics says the new policy will impose undue hardships on foreign couples from countries that criminalize same-sex marriages.

Samantha Power, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, denounced the new policy on Twitter as “needlessly cruel & bigoted.”

“State Dept. will no longer let same-sex domestic partners of UN employees get visas unless they are married,” she tweeted, noting that “only 12% of UN member states allow same-sex marriage.”

By Colum Lynch, ForeignPolicy.com, October 1, 2018

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The Queen’s Cousin Makes History with First Same-Sex Royal Wedding

The intimate ceremony quietly took place over the weekend.

Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin Lord Ivar Mountbatten made history over the weekend as the first royal to have a same-sex wedding when he wed his now-husband, James Coyle. The couple quietly tied the knot in Devon in front of family and friends, Cosmopolitan U.K. reports.

It’s unclear if familiar royals like Kate Middleton, Prince William, Prince Charles, or the sovereign herself were present. (The Cambridges were seen at a friend’s weddingon Saturday.)

Although Lord Ivar’s wedding to James took place out of the public eye (unlike Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s highly publicized nuptials in May), he did share details and photos from the intimate ceremony on Instagram this morning.

“Well we did it finally!” he wrote in the caption. “It was an amazing day despite the miserable British weather.” The images show the grooms wearing velvet jackets for the occasion, with James in deep blue and Lord Ivar in emerald green.

The couple was married by Trish Harrogate, chief Registrar for Devon, “who set the perfect but lighthearted tone for what is a serious occasion,” Lord Ivar added. Music was provided by the Bristol’s Teachers Rock Choir.

Lord Ivar previously married Penelope “Penny” Vere Thompson in 1994, but they divorced on amicable terms in 2011. Five years later, he publicly came out as gay. They have three daughters together, ranging from ages 15 to 22, USA Today reports. The whole family was present at the wedding—and Penny was the one who walked Ivar down the aisle.

Harpers Bazaar by Erica Gonzales, September 24, 2018

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Cuban president backs same-sex marriage

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has said he supports an amendment to his country’s new constitution that would extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.

“I defend that there should be no type of discrimination,” he told Telesur, a television station that is largely funded by the Venezuelan government, during an interview that aired on Sunday. “The will of the people and the people’s sovereignty will have the final word.”

A source in Havana told the Washington Blade the Telesur interview was broadcast on Cuban television on Sunday night.

Díaz-Canel took office in April after Cuba’s National Assembly chose him to succeed Raúl Castro.

Lawmakers in July approved the new constitution with the marriage amendment.

The Cuban government is currently holding meetings that allow members of the public to comment on the new constitution. The National Assembly later this year is expected to finalize it before a referendum that is scheduled to take place in February 2019.

The debate over whether to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples is taking place less than 60 years after gay men were among those sent to labor camps — known by the Spanish acronym UMAPs — after the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power.

Fidel Castro in 2010 apologized for the UMAPs during an interview with a Mexican newspaper. His niece, Mariela Castro, a member of the National Assembly who directs the country’s National Center for Sexual Education, over the last decade has spearheaded LGBTI-specific issues in the Communist country.

Díaz-Canel, who was born after the revolution, supported an LGBTI cultural center in the city of Santa Clara when he was secretary of the Cuban Communist Party in Villa Clara Province. Díaz-Canel also defended Mariela Castro’s doctoral thesis that focused on the integration of transgender people in Cuban society.

Independent LGBTI activists with whom the Blade regularly speaks insist they continue to face harassment and even arrest if they publicly criticize Mariela Castro and/or the Cuban government.

Washington Blade, by Michael K. Lavers, September 17, 2018

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India Strikes Down Colonial-Era Ban on Gay Sex

In a groundbreaking victory for gay rights, India’s Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down one of the world’s oldest bans on consensual gay sex, putting to rest a legal battle that stretched for years and burying one of the most glaring vestiges of India’s colonial past.

After weeks of deliberation in the Supreme Court and decades of struggles by gay Indians, India’s chief justice, Dipak Misra, said that the colonial-era law known as Section 377 was “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary.”

“We have to bid adieu to prejudices and empower all citizens,” he told a packed courtroom.

The court said that gay people were now entitled to all constitutional protections under Indian law and that any discrimination based on sexuality would be illegal.

All around this country, explosions of happiness erupted — and some of outrage, as well.

Gay people hugged, danced, kissed and closed their eyes and cried on the steps of the high court in Bangalore. In Mumbai, human rights activists unleashed a blizzard of confetti.

In their judgments, the justices said that homosexuality was “natural” and that the Indian Constitution was not a “collection of mere dead letters” and should evolve with time.

The Indian justices seemed well aware of the place they were taking in history. Nation after nation has been extending full rights to gay people under the law, and now India, as the world’s second-most populous country, stands, at least legally, among the more progressive.

Human rights activists said they hoped this decision would reverberate around the world.

“This ruling is hugely significant,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. It could set a precedent for nations with similar colonial-era laws to end their “discriminatory, regressive treatment” of gay and transgender citizens, she said.

The court said that Section 377, which was written in the 1860s to cover what were then considered unnatural sexual acts, would still be used in cases of bestiality, for instance, but that it could not be applied any more to consensual gay sex.

New York Times, September 6, 2018 By Jeffrey Gettleman, Kai Schultz and Suhasini Raj

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