Advocates and activists from the LGBTI community have largely welcomed the recommendations of a Senate committee looking at the Federal Government’s proposed national anti-discrimination laws, with the committee suggesting religious exemptions be tightened for service providers, protections be strengthened for transgender people and that intersex people receive specific inclusion under any new legislation.

One brave gay New York subway passenger has become a global internet sensation after boldly standing up to a hate-speaking homophobic preacher during a packed train trip late last week.

Members of the LGBTI community, progressive Catholics and others have called on the Vatican to consider serious reforms so that the Catholic Church may better reflect modern values following Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement this week that he would retire at the end of this month due to poor health.

A group prevented from taking part in the Mardi Gras Parade have spoken out against Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG), questioning whether the current event carries the “integrity” and “purpose” of the original march.

A public hearing in Sydney yesterday into the Federal Government’s proposed new anti-discrimination laws heard that it was of utmost importance to provide specific legal protections for intersex people as well as remove or significantly tighten exemptions allowed for religious organisations.

As a Senate committee prepares to hold public hearings in Sydney this week on Labor's draft national anti-discrimination laws, there’s growing outrage within the LGBTI community and elsewhere over the wide-ranging exemptions offered to religious bodies and other groups that will allow them to continue to legally discriminate against people on several grounds including sexual orientation and gender identity.

The leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict, was denounced as a homophobe over the weekend as a group of feminist activists held a topless protest for gay rights in the Vatican over the weekend.

Gay clergy will now be allowed to become bishops in the Church of England however they will have to meet certain conditions including repenting for past homosexual acts and promising to remain celibate.

SYDNEY: A heterosexual man who controversially spent a year in America living “undercover” as a gay person to experience homophobia and discrimination firsthand will be one of the special guests and keynote speakers at a conference in Sydney later this month that will explore questions of faith, sexuality and life as a spiritual journey.

Though many continue to debate the true meaning of Christmas, it seems Pope Benedict believes that it may involve large doses of homophobia and anti-gay bigotry with the worldwide leader of the Catholic Church claiming in a recent speech that LGBTI people are destroying the very “essence of the human creature”.

Hacker activist group Anonymous has once again stepped up its campaign against the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) after members of the controversial anti-gay family led church announced their intentions to picket the funerals of victims – the majority of whom were young children – of last week’s mass school shooting in the US.

A new project undertaken by Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) Sydney will see it host the city’s first LGBT-friendly young adults group later this month.

A Muslim prayer centre situated in a small room in the house of a Buddhist monk in Paris has quickly taken the title of Europe’s first LGBT-friendly mosque while also stoking criticism from religious leaders that it is “an abuse of the definition of a mosque” and “against the spirit of Islam”.

ADULT: A Christian driver refused to execute his duties because his bus carried pro-gay advertisements. Was he right to protest? Barry Lowe explores.

A new survey has found that religious private schools hold legal exemptions to discriminate and refuse employment to LGBT teachers and educators.