Wales Rugby Star Gareth Thomas: I'm Gay

Wales rugby legend and fullback for the Cardiff Blues Gareth Thomas has joined the few high-profile athletes who have come out of the closet during their career, telling the Daily Mail he's gay:

"I've been through all sorts of emotions with this, tears, anger and absolute despair. I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to let people know, and, to be honest, I feel anxious about people's reactions and the effect it might have on my family. It's been really tough for me, hiding who I really am, and I don't want it to be like that for the next young person who wants to play rugby, or some frightened young kid. I don't know if my life is going to be easier because I'm out, but if it helps someone else, if it makes one young lad pick up the phone to ChildLine, then it will have been worth it. My parents, my family and my friends all love me and accept me for who I am, and even if the public are upset by this, I know the love of those people who mean the most to me will never change. I'm not going on a crusade, but I'm proud of who I am. I feel I have achieved everything I could ever possibly have hoped to achieve out of rugby, and I did it being gay. I want to send a positive message to other gay people that they can do it, too."

Much more at the Daily Mail...

Former Australian rugby star Ian Roberts, who came out late in his career in 1995, told the Sun Herald: "It's great that the times have allowed for it. It's so bewildering to me that other people haven't allowed for that to happen to themselves. There are so many gay sportspeople ... gay people playing league. I'm just like, 'How can you be controlled by all these other people?' It doesn't have to be a problem, as long as you don't allow it to be a problem. I think it's great ... at long last someone else has done it! It's almost like, that's the breaking of the ice for me. The fact that someone else has done it, it shows that it can happen and it does happen."

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Civil Partnerships Fell in UK by 18 Percent Last Year

The UK saw civil partnership registrations decline by a fifth last year, the Guardian reports:

"A total of 33,956 partnerships between gay couples have been formed since the law first allowed them in December 2005. The fall in England and Wales, where 6,588 partnerships were formed last year, was 17%; in Scotland 24% and in Northern Ireland 23%, the provisional figures reveal. In 2008, men made up 53% of those forming civil partnerships, down from 55%, with the largest numbers being registered in the London borough of Westminster (234 between men and 48 between women) and Brighton and Hove (158 involving men and 116 women). The figures also show that 180 civil partnerships were dissolved last year, compared with 42 the year before. Most involved female couples."

Said activist Peter Tatchell: "After civil parternships were legislated there was a huge surge of couples who had been together for decades who suddenly wished to take advantage of the legal recognition. Now we've settled into a pattern of civil partnership take-up which reflects people who have recently fallen in love for the first time. He added that other couples are now waiting in the hope the law will change regarding same-sex marriage. Initially most were ready to settle for civil partnerships. After years of no legal rights they were desperate to get something. Now the mood is shifting in favour of full legal equality - the right to get married in a registry office on the same level as heterosexual couples."

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One Life to Live to out two existing male characters played by openly gay  Scott Evans (Chris Evans' brother) and Brett Claywell, and put them in a love affair.

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Brooklyn Assemblyman wants all non-Jews out of Holocaust memorial: "Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind doesn't want gays, political prisoners, gypsies, the handicapped — or any other group of people persecuted and killed by the hundreds of thousands during the Holocaust — to be recognized at the city-owned Holocaust Memorial Park in Sheepshead Bay. Even though 5 million non-Jews were killed by the Nazis alongside the 6 million Jews, Hikind says that 'to include these other groups diminishes their memory.'"

UPDATE to first item, AFTER THE JUMP...

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