With the aspiration of using photography to promote international gay rights and visibility, the new and independently developed “Walk with Pride” project aims to spend over a year documenting pride parades around the globe.

Zack has been featured on Russia Today’s coverage of the National Equality March.

I’m going to go ahead and warn returning and new Global Gaze readers that this is not going to be a particularly happy-go-lucky post. Sometimes, however, blogging about international gay issues means fulfilling Anton Chekov’s prescription that “at the door of every happy person there should be a man with a hammer whose knock would serve as a constant reminder of the existence of unfortunate people.” Anyway, I just wanted to say that I know writing this column can sometimes make me seem like the constant bearer of bad news, but I promise to deliver some more lighthearted, perhaps even uplifting, posts in the weeks to come.

But for now, I’ve been following the international press, and the news isn’t always good. In fact, while it’s preferable to think of the gay rights movement as steady march towards equality, as events like the passage of Prop. 8 last year in California taught us, in real life there are often setbacks and stumbles on the road to tolerance and equal rights. So, sometimes, even in the midst of celebrating a victory, the global queer community needs to be even more vigilant about taking stock and preventing backsliding in the quest for equality.

I often refer to an “international queer community” in my columns, but this week I got to thinking: Does such a thing even exist? Should it?

Eternally delightful Swedish singer Marit Bergman has become the newest entry into our Queering The Band series with her exclusive acoustic version of her song “Casey, Hold On.” The track was the official song of Stockholm Pride 2009, and its actually gives me goosebumps. Even if you weren’t kicked out of of the house as a gay teen (a sadly too-common phenomenon,) I think most of us can remember the feeling of wanting to be somewhere else where we would be accepted. The sentiment here is an important one for queer folk of all ages, which is to have patience and keep fighting to find that time or place when things will be better.

Last year I wrote a piece for another publication that I titled “The State of Pride.” The purpose of the article was to survey Gay Pride celebrations around the world and try to extrapolate from these events international shifts in terms of legal rights and societal attitudes regarding sexual minorities throughout the international community.

Many moons ago, a person calling themselves only “JT” suggested I do a column on Houston, Texas poet Pat Parker. This poem is almost a manifesto, illustrating in each stanza the double standard of being gay in public. So unwind, recover, and enjoy this Tuesday’s poem.

Our staff answers the question “Does pride make you proud?”

Welcome to Thursday, folks. It’s been a stormy week so far, but the the forecast for the weekend looks good, and if last year taught the District anything, a little rain can’t keep Pride down. This weekend marks the end of this year’s Pride festivities, with all of the revelry that entails. In addition to the parade, there will be a lot of other Pride and non-Pride-related events. Below is a sampling.

The Indie Rock Fag tries to puzzle out his feelings toward Pride.