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BANJUL, Gambia — Authorities in Gambia have arrested two Spanish men for allegedly making ‘‘homosexual proposals’’ to taxi drivers, police said Monday. The arrests come less than three weeks after Gambia’s president ordered homosexuals to leave the West African country and threatened in a nationally televised speech to ‘‘cut off the head’’ of anyone discovered to be gay. The Spanish nationals were taken into custody Friday after the taxi drivers reported being solicited by them, police spokesman Sulayman Secka said. He declined to give further details on the incident or say when the men might be released. ‘‘They are helping...

ELIZABETH, N.J. -- Opposing sides in the divorce trial of New Jersey's gay ex-governor focused on his estranged wife Thursday in an acrimonious dispute over whether she is entitled to collect on the opulent lifestyle she lost when a sex scandal toppled his administration. Dina Matos -- who said she now prefers to be called by her maiden name -- faces more tough questions Friday after spending all day on the witness stand Thursday. Under gentle questioning from her lawyer in the morning, Matos painted herself as a dutiful spouse and loyal political partner of former Gov. James McGreevey. But...

A Home Depot store in Utah plans to celebrate Gay pride in the Store with decorations of Rainbows and employee Tee shirts announcing gay pride. Inside sources say that this is something that will be devastating to business as most of the customer base tends to be on the Right side of the issue as they are mostly religious people. I am actively involved in this business and i dont want to be a part of it bacuae this is contrary to my belief and would like advice from more experienced FReepers on how best to disrupt these outrageous plans...

SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court has overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that would make the nation's largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings. The justices' 4-3 decision Thursday says domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage. Chief Justice Ron George wrote the opinion. The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco's monthlong same-sex wedding march. The case before the court involved a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn a voter-approved law...

A North Carolina National Guard member thought to be the first U.S. soldier convicted of murdering an Iraqi said he "snapped" and shot the 17-year-old boy after they had consensual sex, according to court-martial records released this week. Pvt. Federico Daniel Merida, 21, of Biscoe, a tiny town south of Asheboro, pleaded guilty during a court-martial in Iraq to shooting the Iraqi national guard private, whose name the Army withheld. Merida was sentenced Sept. 25 to 25 years in prison and reduced in rank. He will be dishonorably discharged. Army officials at Forward Operating Base Danger, where the court-martial was...

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/11/112204senWeds.htm (Boston, Massachusetts) Massachusetts state Sen. Jarrett Barrios has married his longtime partner, Doug Hattaway, a former spokesperson for Vice President Al Gore. The two were wed in a weekend ceremony at First Parish Church in Cambridge. Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts last May. (story) Barrios and Hattaway have been together for 10 years and have two children.

Tony Blair today launched an extraordinary attack on the decline of the traditional family and the rise of "different lifestyles". In a speech which risked a backlash from single parents' groups and Labour MPs, the Prime Minister said the culture of the "Swinging Sixties" was partly to blame for crime and social breakdown. "A society of different lifestyles spawned a group of young people who were brought up without parental discipline, without proper role models and without any sense of responsibility to others," said Mr Blair. "All of this was then multiplied in effect by the economic and social changes...

THE Blair government was told in January by the Americans that there was no justification for attacking Iraq in the "war on terrorism" and that their main aim was getting rid of Saddam Hussein who stood in the way of the West's control of Middle Eastern oil wealth. This partly explains why Blair abandoned presenting to Parliament a famous "dossier" in which "the evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction is simply vast". The dossier is no more than a stream of warmed-over assertions and deceptions, supplied by Washington. According to reliable intelligence sources in another Western country, who...