A lesbian couple in Colorado who say they were victims of a hate crime have been charged after police were determined they staged the incidents.

Last October the two American women called the police and said ‘Kill The Gay’ had been scrawled in red paint on the front of their house.

The next day, the couple said they discovered a noose hanging on the handle from their front door.

More than half of Italians think that same-sex couples should have more rights, but only 43% believe that they should have the right to marry.

The Italian Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (national institute of statistics) released its first survey on homosexuality in the Mediterranean country, in Rome this morning (17 May).

More than one million Italians describe themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and two million revealed to have had a same-sex relationship or experience.

A woman who was part of a group which attacked a lesbian teenager on a train after spotting her kissing her girlfriend has been jailed.

April James, 20, of Carfax Close in Bexhill, Sussex, England, was sentenced to six weeks in prison at Hastings Magistrates’ Court yesterday (14 May) after pleading guilty to assault by beating.

The 16-year-old victim was attacked on 15 October last year while travelling by train to Bexhill with her girlfriend, also 16, after attending the Hastings Bonfire celebrations.

According to a leaked memo from a political operative, it's time for the Republican Party to be more gay friendly.

Jan van Lohuizen, who worked as a pollster on the 2004 reelection campaign for President George W. Bush,  sent his talking points to Republican candidates. He argued the party should reflect the changing attitudes American voters now have toward gays and lesbians.

Business leaders will meet in London this summer to discuss how to increase workplace equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees around the world.

The Out & Equal summit on 5 and 6 July coincides with the UK capital holding this year’s World Pride – Gay Star News is a partner of both events.

The speakers include:

Over 500 energetic supporters helped gay campaign group Stonewall raise more than £60,000 ($97,000 €74,000) today (6 May) on the annual Equality Walk.

The 10km walk in the seaside city of Brighton on England’s south coast took in some of the city’s most iconic sites, including the Royal Pavilion and Pier.

The threatened rainstorms held off allowing for a cloudy but dry stroll.

Molly Ringwald is about to be part of a storyline unlike anything anything she did as the teen star of such classic 80s films as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink.

The actress, now 44, is going to have a lesbian fling with a new female character on ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager, according to TVLine.com.

Chelles restaurant in Costa Rica was told to 'kiss customers goodbye' yesterday (29 April) for discriminating against gays.

Over 100 protestors assembled to take issue with the bar in San José for throwing out a lesbian couple.

Anti-discrimination group Beso Diverso (Diverse Kiss) organized the protest to demand that Chelles bar publicly apologize for discriminating against the couple.

Chelles bar refused to served the lesbian couple and their friends last month after the lovers were seen kissing.

Gay and bisexual men are more likely to smoke, drink, take drugs, self-harm, attempt suicide and be depressed – but they’re often overlooked by health services.

That’s the damning verdict of a survey by Stonewall into the health of gay and bisexual men in Britain – the biggest study of it’s kind in the world.

Their report out today (25 April) found that 3% of gay men and 5% of bisexual men have attempted suicide in the last year alone – by comparison to just 0.4% of men in general.

The entire editorial staff of Out Magazine is being laid off but some may be hired back under a new business arrangement for the monthly gay lifestyle publication, editor Aaron Hicklin said Wednesday (18 April).

The US-based magazine is the sister publication to The Advocate and is owned by Here Media which bought the titles in 2008. Here Media has struck a deal with Hicklin to continue running the magazine under a new company he has founded called Grand Editorial.

The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in Soho, New York has been accredited as an official museum by the State of New York.

They say that makes them the first and only museum of gay and lesbian art in the world, although other LGBT museums include art exhibitions.

The museum focuses on art that tackles issues of gender and sexuality within the context of how the artists’ sexuality has influenced their work.

A production of The Vagina Monologues in Chinese, with specially-written segments relevant to the LGBT community, played to packed audiences in Shanghai last weekend. Gay Star News speak to the director Xiao Yan about Chinese voices are calling more loudly for gay rights than for women’s rights.

Why did you decided to stage The Vagina Monologues in China?