Homosexual Couples Get Legal Status in Germany

REUTERS, Aug. 1 — Angelika Baldow and Gudrun Pannier, clad in white tie and tails, were the first couple to take advantage of a German law allowing the registration of same-sex partnerships, the wire service reported.

Same-sex partners can share surnames (Baldow and Pannier became Frau and Frau Pannier, the German equivalent of “Mrs. Pannier”), and have the same inheritance rights as married couples. The law does not give homosexual couples the tax breaks married couples enjoy, nor the right to adopt children. Same-sex partnerships are formally known as “registered life partnerships.”

The law still faces a legal challenge, to be decided next year.

Pregnant Baptist Mother Forced Out of Turkmenistan

KESTON NEWS SERVICE, July 23 — Two Baptist women were ordered to leave Turkmenistan after their husbands were deported for religious activity, the religious-freedom news service reported.

One of the women, Nadezhda Potolova, is pregnant with her fourth child.

Six other Baptist families from the Council of Churches, to which the two women belonged, have been deported from Turkmenistan in the past few years despite having legal residence. Hundreds of foreign Protestants, Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses and Hare Krishnas have also been deported.

Iranian Ayatollah Endorses Abortion and Sex Changes

NEW YORK TIMES, July 29 — A profile of Iranian Ayatollah Saanei in the New York daily noted that in his vigorous championing of women's equality under Islamic law, he has also endorsed abortion.

Saanei declared that women could hold any office, and that “blood money” paid in compensation for causing a woman's death must be equivalent to that paid for a man. However, he also said early abortion was permissible if the pregnancy threatened the mother's health or if the child would have abnormalities. He has also permitted some sex-change operations.

Saanei was a protégé of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He withdrew from government in 1984, and now leads Iran's Islamic reform movement, which works closely with reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

Mexican Mass Draws Leftist Ire

ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 27 — Mexico's largest leftist party is furious that a government official hung a crucifix in his office and invited employees to a Mass in a government building, the wire service reported.

The Democratic Revolution Party filed a complaint with the Mexico City comptroller and announced that it would seek to ban all religious images from government offices.

Jose Espina, a borough president from President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, hung a crucifix in his office and sent a letter on official stationery inviting government employees to a Mother's Day Mass at borough offices.

Mexico's Constitution says officials cannot give preference to any religious group. Espina argued that his actions did not violate that law.

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