Just some random Saturday morning LGBTQ stuff ...

Pam's House Blend contributor Ken from Mississippi has a nice little piece on the activism of coming out.

As I've said many times here at the little coffeehouse, the most radical, powerful bit of activism that we can do as LGBT citizens is to come out of the closet, live openly. The power to effect change and acceptance is to let your friends, family, work colleagues and people see that our lives are as normal and mundane as theirs, and that there is nothing to fear by expanding their world view to include a more diverse view of people.

Also from Pam, John McCain calls gay members of the military an "intolerable risk."  Sigh.

This weekend is the first regional meeting of the International  Lesbian and Gay Association in Africa. According to Pink News out of the UK, 38 African nations - all members of the United Nation -criminalize consensual same sex activity. 

There's a report on PageOneQ that an Iraqi gay man was beaten and tortured by Iraqi police - for being gay - while Americans were present. For being gay. 

The EU's Court of Human Rights has condemned the ruling that banned the Warsaw Gay Pride festival, saying it violated the EU Human Rights Charter.  Warsaw hasn't been kind to Gay Pride as we've reported before.

And you've probably heard that Rosie O'Donnell made Time's list of the 100 Most Influential People.  W did not make the list.  Sadly, Archbishop Peter Akinola of the Anglican "Hate the Homo" theological tradition made the list.  That's really scary.