By Gary Barlow

Gay couple celebrates Uruguay’s first civil union
MONTEVIDEO—A gay couple celebrated Uruguay’s first civil union April 17, tying the knot in a brief ceremony in a courtroom in Montevideo.

Actor and director Juan Carlos Moretti and his partner, Adrian Figuera, celebrated their union in front of a small group of family and friends.

Moretti later told AFP that the new law permitting gay and lesbian couples to have civil unions is “a matter of justice and a step forward for Uruguayan society.”

The couple has lived together for 14 years.

The new civil unions law was passed early this year and provides for gay and lesbian couples to enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as married opposite-sex couples. Among Central and South American countries, Uruguay is the first to legalize civil unions nationwide. Civil unions are also legal in two states in Mexico, three states in Argentina and one state in Brazil.

Famed Vancouver bookstore goes
up for sale
VANCOUVER—Two gay Vancouver bookstore owners who spent 23 years in court challenging Canadian censors said last week that the store is up for sale.

Jim Deva and Bruce Smyth, owners of Little Sister’s Book and Emporium since it opened in 1983, said it’s time to do something else.

Just two years after opening the store, Deva and Smyth were stunned when Canadian Customs officials seized a number of books being shipped to the store and declared them obscene. Among the books seized were Jean Genet’s “Querelle,” Quentin Crisp’s “The Naked Civil Servant,” Joe Orton’s “Prick Up Your Ears,” “The Joy of Gay Sex” and “The Joy of Lesbian Sex.”

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and a host of influential writers rallied to their side as the bookstore owners fought their way through a longer court battle than anyone expected.

“I think it’s our tenacity,” Deva told the Canadian Press last week. “We just wouldn’t give up and came back again and again at them from every angle we could figure out.”

The store owners’ long struggle against censorship has been chronicled in books and in the film “Little Sister’s vs. Big Brother.”