A note to press-at-icann.org yielded this note from ICANN's Tanzanica King:

15 September - Marina del Rey, California - The ICANN Board of Directors today approved the contractual arrangement with Fundació puntCAT for the introduction of a new .CAT, a sponsored top level domain (sTLD), for the Catalan language community. The Board noted the written communications it had received from the governments of Spain and Andorra not objecting to the .CAT application.

The Board also considered an agreement for the proposed .XXX sTLD. It expressed some concerns in relation to draft compliance and process terms. The Board directed ICANN staff to negotiate additional contractual provisions requiring development and implementation of policies consistent with ICM Registry's application. The Board will consider the outcome of these negotiations at some future date.

The board dealt with an additional administrative matter, and continued other matters on its agenda until its next board meeting.

Regards,

Tanzanica S. King
Communications and Operations Specialist
ICANN

I can't quite parse the language on the .XXX deferral, but it looks as though the additional delay, this time, has nothing to do with opposition to the concept of .XXX and more to do with the implementation of .XXX. If I'm reading it correctly, this is a step forward.