I wish this post was pure fiction!

Granted, it would straddle the line between horror and just plain sick trash fiction, but it's not fiction.  My post from yesterday is as close as I get to creative writing, and the "creative" parts were more to paint a more colorful picture and fill in a few blanks where minute details were lost to my long-term memory.

In Iraq, right now, amongst all the violence, rebuilding, troops, etc., are anywhere from one to 200 or more people in Iraqi prisons awaiting executions.  And, as best as anyone can figure, anywhere from one to who knows how many of those 200 or more are being executed for . .

 . . serial murders? . . . serial rape? . . . blowing something up?

Nope!  They're being executed for being gay.

Iraq isn't alone in having laws on the books that prescribe death for the crime of being gay.  According to the Human Rights Law Review write up posted at the Yogyakarta Principles' website, Iraq is just one of seven countries in the world where "consentual same sex practices" is punishable by death (the others are Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, U.A.E, Yemen and parts of Nigeria).

The report also chronicles incidents in other countries of gays/lesbians/transgendered people being killed being known activists. 

Having enveloped myself in most everything political for the last couple of years, it is all to easy to feel like you're drowning in the inability to affect change fast enough.  For now, echoing blog postings and news stories and adding my own humble opinion is about all I am able to do.

Good news in all of this?  There are endless opportunities to be present and lend support to any one or more of these issues.

So, read, write, be present, find your passion and take care of yourself.  My new boss did so today by treating to a cup o' frozen yogurt!