The head of Georgia's influential Orthodox Church called Thursday on the authorities to ban a gay rights rally set to be held in the deeply religious country. The call came a day before gay rights activists were to stage a brief demonstration in central Tbilisi to mark the International Day against Homophobia. "Any religious and scientific teaching -- except for modern pseudo-science -- considers homosexuality to be an anomaly and illness," Patriarch Ilia II wrote in an open letter to Tbilisi's mayor.

The French parliament on Tuesday defied months of angry protests by approving a bill that is to make France the 14th country worldwide to legalise same-sex marriages. But opponents to the law vowed to fight on, quickly filing a constitutional challenge and promising more demonstrations to pressure President Francois Hollande into backing down from signing the bill. In its second and final reading, the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, voted 331 to 225 to adopt the bill allowing homosexual marriages and adoptions by gay couples.

New Zealand became the first Asia-Pacific country to legalise same-sex marriage Wednesday after a decades-long campaign, a historic decision celebrated with parties across the gay community. A parliamentary vote overwhelmingly backed a move to amend the 1955 Marriage Act 77-44 to describe matrimony as a union of two people regardless of their sex, sexuality or how they choose to identify their gender. "It is about saying these lives matter, our society is big enough for us," gay Green Party MP Kevin Hague told parliament.

New Zealand is poised to become the first Asia-Pacific nation to legalise same-sex marriage in a parliamentary vote that gay rights advocates on Tuesday hailed as a milestone for equality. A bill that amends the 1955 Marriage Act to describe marriage as a union of two people regardless of their sex, sexuality or how they choose to identify their gender will have its third and final reading in parliament late Wednesday.