Earlier this month the news that Vietnam might become the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage made headlines around the world. The news appeared to come out of nowhere, as no-one expected the socially conservative one-party state to be so progressive.

In an interview with Gay Star News Le Quang Binh, the director of the first LGBT rights organization in Vietnam, reveals the five year story behind this month’s headlines.

As a member of the LGBT community, are you actively hetero-friendly?

Sure, we live in a predominantly straight world that we’re trying to make as gay-friendly as possible.

However, the process is not always friendly, and unfortunately has been known to include violence and even death.

But in the fight for our rights, do you forget that in some cases you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?

Igualdad Peru’s director Luis Antonio Capurro reminds us that heterosexuals are not the enemy (at least not all of them).

A 100-day hunger strike for gay rights has spread far beyond the US state of Michigan, inspiring activists around the world to stage their own protest fast in support.

Leaders from the Community Centers Network (CCN), which is made up of eight lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups in Michigan, are refusing food for 24-hour shifts, living on display in the front windows of Affirmations, the state’s largest LGBT community center on 9 Mile Road, in the heart of downtown Ferndale.

US civil rights lawyer Evan Wolfson spoke to a packed room at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday night about the progression of the struggle for LGBT marriage rights in the United States, and the lessons that struggle has for other countries around the world.

Russian social network VKontakte has sparked fury after it banned a user from stating he was in a gay relationship.

A male user known only as Oleg allegedly wrote to the network's administrators for help after being unable to select the ‘boyfriend’ option under his relationship status.

However, Oleg was outraged after the website refused to help him change his status.

While the website’s response have sparked anger from many in Russia’s LGBT community, gay rights activist Nikolai Alekseev says protests against the decision will have little impact.

LGBT groups in the US have begun a 100-day hunger strike to protest state laws which the campaigners claim are anti-gay.

Leaders from the Community Centers Network (CCN), which is made up of eight lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups in Michigan, are refusing food for 24-hour shifts, living on display in the front windows of Affirmations, the state’s largest LGBT community center on 9 Mile Road, in the heart of downtown Ferndale.

Give gay pride back to the people, was the message shouted loud and clear at a debate on how to save the future of London’s troubled LGBT festival.

Around 200 people packed into Heaven nightclub in the UK capital’s center tonight (25 July) to take part in a discussion on this year’s event, which was heavily scaled back at the last minute.

Passions were high as a panel of experts who have been involved in London pride faced questions from the public over why the parade on 7 July was reduced to a walking march with no floats and a Soho street party cancelled.

Thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender travelers and their friends will be painting an Austrian lake pink this summer in a unique four-day summer holiday event.

Pink Lake, which is supported by Gay Star News this year, is a long weekend of costume balls and boat parties on the stunning Lake Woerthersee, nestled between Slovakia and Italy.

We asked Jeff Wahl, one of the organizers, to tell us all about it.

What is Pink Lake?

Critically acclaimed gay actor Simon Callow will host an LGBT special of TV show UK360, on the Community Channel next Monday (16 July).

Twenty-two Hispanic organizations announced a new LGBT family initiative called Familia es Familia.

In a press release from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the bilingual program is described as an attempt 'at strengthening Latino voices to build support within the Latino community for acceptance of LGBT family members.'

Small and compact Matthew Halliday and big and bearish Monty Moncrieff are a study in contrasts in many ways, but both are equally passionate about the work of LGBT charity London Friend, which in 2012 celebrates its 40th anniversary.

On the day I was born, London free-sheet Capital Gay ran a front page article under the headline ‘US disease hits London’. It announced that four gay men, one of them Terry Higgins, had died of a mysterious new illness, rumors of which had been circulating since the previous year.

Terry, who died on 4 July 1982, aged 37, had become the first person in the UK to be publicly identified as dying with what was then referred to as GRID (gay-related immune deficiency) but what we now know as AIDS.