Australia's ruling Labor Party has voted to recognise same-sex unions while maintaining a ban on gay marriage.

Outside the party's national conference in Sydney, gay rights activists, some of them dressed in wedding gowns, were calling for the legalisation of gay marriage. Gay rights advocates also took to the streets of Melbourne and Brisbane. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a moderate Christian, won the 2007 election on a platform that supported the former conservative government's definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. But the Labor government has passed legislation to remove same-sex discrimination from some 100 national laws.

In the Netherlands, same-sex unions have been recognised since 1998. In 2001, it became the first country to legalise gay marriage.

Photo ANP