LGBT-inclusive workplaces guru Todd Sears spoke at an event in Hong Kong yesterday to inspire corporations to improve office environments for gay, bi and trans employees.

The Goldman Sachs event entitled Raise Your LGBT Ally Game focused on getting straight supporters of LGBT rights to become active in creating a more inclusive workplace.

The talk was video conferenced to eight cities across the region - Beijing, Bangalore, Melbourne, Mumbai, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo - where around 200 people logged-on to hear what Sears had to say.

Robbie Rogers, the first openly gay player in the history of the Major League Soccer league, thinks 'it's kind of sad' that gays are still such a topic of debate in American society.

'It's kind of sad that in 2013 we're still busy having to discuss all this stuff - marriage and Boy Scouts and even that out athletes are such a big deal,' the LA Galaxy player said this week during a visit to the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.

Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was pledged that his government will legalize civil union for both gay and straight couples by the end of this year.

Muscat made the statement as he was awarded the ‘Gay Exiles' Soldier Award’ for supporting the country’s LGBT community and his commitment for legalizing gay civil unions.

Muscat said yesterday (18 June) that the government was committed in honoring its pledges made during the electoral campaign, including gay civil union.

A gay taxi driver in his mid 20s has narrowly escaped an attack by two men armed with machetes who he believes were sent by his father to kill him.

The unidentified men, who covered their faces with black masks, vowed to kill Mohamed Barrie for being gay as they assaulted him at his apartment on Sibthorpe Street, central Freetown, Sierra Leone.

The west African nation is known for its homophobic laws which criminalize gay sex.

Barrie, a taxi driver, went home at 11:30pm local time on 7 June after working all day.

A petition of 14,000 signatures of people who support the legal recognition of same-sex marriages performed abroad in Australia was delivered to Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young today.

Gay couples in Colombia may be able to get married as soon as Friday (21 June), as the deadline for the law approaches.

In 2011, the South American country’s Constitutional Court ruled gays and lesbians will be able to legally register their relationships after 20 June if lawmakers failed to extend them the same benefits through marriage.

The court ruled gay couples have equal legal rights to be constituted as a family, and Colombian lawmakers must eliminate a ‘deficit of legal protection’.

Anti-gay attackers beat up and spat on a man because of his sexuality during Lyon pride, while at least three other incidents of anti-gay attacks have been recorded.

All the attacks occurred during the evening during the 18th gay Pride of Lyon that celebrated France’s historical passing of the marriage equality bill.

In one incident, two male attackers, one 23 year-old and another aged 17 kicked to the ground and spat on a gay man around 5pm in Lyon’s town center on Saturday (15 June).

Gay rights activists from Russia are calling for a boycott of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

The RUSA LGBT organization based in New York have said lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are not safe in Russia, and are hoping straight people too will support the ban.

Britain’s House of Lords has been debating whether straight marriages should be renamed as ‘real’ or ‘traditional’ and if gay marriage should be called marriage at all.

Meanwhile the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has hinted the Church of England should give more recognition to gay and lesbian partnerships – asking why it is the Anglican Church would rather bless a ‘sheep’ or ‘tree’ than a same-sex couple.

While momentum towards same-sex marriage is stalled in Australia (it is unlikely the issue will be revisited before the general election on 14 September), one state has the opportunity to show its support for marriage equality.

Gerry Kandelaars, Labor Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) in South Australia will introduce a motion tomorrow (Wednesday 19 June) calling for the upper house to formally congratulate New Zealand on achieving marriage equality.

A newspaper columnist questioned the sexuality of the Australian prime minister's boyfriend again on a TV show yesterday.

On Sunday discussion TV show ABC Insiders right-wing newspaper columnist Piers Akerman said 'a lot of people in the Canberra [press] gallery have been saying the same thing [as radio host Howard Sattler]'.

Guests on ABC Insiders were discussing Sattler's live radio interview with Prime Minister Julia Gillard last week, in which he asked if her parter Tim Mathieson is gay.