I just read a post on Fastlad about a horrifc gay bashing in New York City.

On Sunday night Michael J. Sandy was lured to a car park frequented by gay men in Brooklyn. There, four men jumped him. In the scuffle that followed he was forced onto the Belt Parkway where he was struck by a car that didn’t stop.
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My head is swirling with anger, frustration, sadness and pain. I'm trying to reconcile all of this this with the fact that yesterday was National Coming Out Day, that this is one of many recent highly publicized bashings, that we continue to think and act as if we are much safer and freer than we are, and wonder what it will take for things to change.

Meanwhile, for some reason there seems to be this collective misbelief around the world that the U.S. is much more open and safe than it actually is. Yes, all things being relative we could argue that folks in the U.S. are much better off than in many places; after all, being queer isn't illegal. But then again homosexuality is outlawed in Singapore but they're not tying people to fences and setting them aflame 100 miles from nowhere.