A new report launched today reveals that in Britain LGBT people have worse health than straights.

British LGBT people have higher rates of physical and emotional bullying; suicide and self-harm; drug use; alcohol use; smoking in adulthood; and social isolation and vulnerability in old age.

The Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF) published by the Department of Health does not contain health data relating to LGBT communities because of the lack of monitoring. This means that the specific health needs of LGBT people are often ignored.

The culture of the Police Service in Britain is developing into one where you can be as comfortable at work as you are at home – that is the strategic aim. It is worth noting that there are eight local police forces listed in the Stonewall Top 100 Index of gay-friendly employers and LGBT officers are included in the majority of UK police forces. It hasn’t always been this way.

Over 100,000 people from nations including Canada, France, UK, USA, Netherlands, Germany and Japan, say they still suffer from discrimination and harassment at home and in work.

The LGBT 2020 Homophobia Report from Out Now Global says homophobia is still endemic – even where gay marriage has been accepted.

A controversial radio host is claiming Gay Star News and other LGBT news sites can turn kids gay.

Linda Harvey, host of Mission America’s radio show, says gay news sites and blogs that are ‘sympathetic to the social and political goals of the homosexual movement’ will lead children into questioning their sexuality.

When I started the Facebook page Gay Marriage USA in 2011 there was a very conscious decision made on my part to include the words ‘gay marriage’ in the title. This was done in an effort to take advantage of the high recognition value that the term carries. Clearly identifying and labeling a cause helps greatly in getting people to support it.

Gay rights activists are demanding audits into British faith groups who’ve published homophobic materials.

According to British newspaper The Guardian, an investigation has revealed numerous church groups throughout the UK that receive grants from the Big Lottery Fund have published anti-gay lesson plans and sexist articles online.

Every year, the Big Lottery Fund awards millions of pounds to organizations for ‘good causes’.

Gay men and women living in a strict Islamic province of Indonesia are going to be publicly lashed 100 times under a proposed bylaw backed by politicians.

Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal, the Banda Aceh Deputy Mayor, is calling for harsher bylaws against gay people as it is against the district’s adherence to sharia law.

Djamal, who has called homosexuality ‘a social disease that should be eradicated, has complained police are unable to punish gay people under current rules.

A Cambodian LGBT rights activist said that some local authorities in the southeast Asian nation already recognize gay couples as married.

'Some local authorities give marriage certificates to lesbian couples,' said Srorn Srun facilitator for Rainbow Community Kampuchea (RoCK) in a interview with Gay Star News.

Cambodian law defines marriage as between a man and a woman only but in some provinces in the country local government officials have decided to recognize gay couples.

Data from the US National Surveys of Family Growth appears to show that American gay men have become less promiscuous over the decade that same-sex marriages first began to become available to them.

Researchers compared data from gay men aged between 15 and 44 who took part in the National Surveys of Family Growth in 2002 to those who took part between 2006 and 2010 and found a statistically meaningful drop in the numbers of sexual partners they reported having in the last year.

A Catholic priest in Australia said committed gay relationships should be met with 'not just recognition but joy... that's the least we can offer people'.

Canberra-based priest Michael Fallon said in an interview with Canberra Times he feared ordinary people were being repulsed from the Catholic church by its hardline views on gay relationships.

Gay 90s pop star Lance Bass reckons a member of British boyband sensation One Direction is probably gay.

The N*Sync star was chatting to The Rubin Report about his experiences of coming out after Jason Collins, the basketball star came out earlier this week.

‘Statistically speaking, one probably is [gay],’ Bass said. ‘The market is 100% young women and they fantasize about these [One Direction] guys.

It has been over six months since I contributed an article for Gay Star News.

So much has happened but often we can only wait by the sideline and do little or nothing. Often when we intervene we make it worse. That’s the case in global LGBT rights, where we can do harm by saying the wrong thing or even playing the politics of power and money.