The long-respected North American sales outlet for rail tickets and passes around Europe, Rail Europe has created a "Be Fabulous in Four Gay-Friendly Countries" promotion - just buy any rail pass that includes travel in Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, or Switzerland by the end of July and you'll receive a 10% discount (use the promo code FABFOUR).

Rail Europe sells a wide range of Eurail Passes that cover one or more of these countries, and many of them cover neighboring nations as well, so this is a terrific way to see several gay-popular European cities this summer - and, of course, you can use your pass well into the future.

Denmark and the Netherlands are especially notable destinations for gay travelers in August, as from August 4 through August 7, Amsterdam Gay Pride - complete with its colorful Canal Boat Parade - draws more than a half-million celebrants. Later in the month, Copenhagen Gay Pride presents four days of parties, parades, and GLBT arts and cultural programming from August 17 through 21.

These are just a few of the many Gay Pride festivals taking place in cities that you can reach using these discounted Eurail passes over the coming months - Munich, Sitges, Nice, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Stockholm, Mannheim, and Prague are among the others. Take a look at my July Gay Pride Worldwide Calendar and August Gay Pride Worldwide Calendar for dates and links to these other festivals.

Begun as a modest going away party for a friend in 1972, New Orleans Southern Decadence has blossomed over the years into one of the country's wildest gay celebrations - some devotees even refer to this six-day festival of Labor Day weekend as "Gay Mardi Gras," though, of course, the city's official Mardi Gras is also a favorite GLBT event in the Big Easy.

Southern Decadence comprises parties at major clubs (the main one being Bourbon Pub) throughout the French Quarter, as well as block parties mostly centered around the hub of the city's gay scene, Bourbon Street at St. Ann Street. There's a huge concert featuring Deborah Cox on Saturday, September 3, and the official Southern Decadence Parade takes place on Sunday, September 4. Check out my preview of Southern Decadence 2011 for more on what to expect.

It may feel a little soon to start planning for a party that takes place during the final big weekend of summer (the dates this year are Wednesday, August 31, through Monday, September 5), but as Southern Decadence has come to draw bigger and bigger crowds each year, it's never too soon to start booking hotel rooms. For ideas, see my article on choosing a gay-friendly hotel or B&B; in New Orleans.

The last weekend in June is when many of the largest Gay Pride celebrations in the country take place, as it was this week in late June 1969 that the Stonewall Riots took place at New York City's Stonewall Inn, helping to launch what many of us think of as the modern Gay Rights movement.

It's not surprising that one of the top such events is New York City Gay Pride, which includes the famous parade down 5th Avenue to the West Village as well as a festival and several other big events. Here's a detailed preview of NYC Gay Pride 2011.

Two of the other largest festivals set for next weekend are Chicago Gay Pride, which includes a wonderfully well-attended street festival on Halsted Street as well as the increasingly popular women's party in Andersonville, the Backlot Bash. Here's more on all of the events related to Chicago Gay Pride.

The Bay Area's many GLBT residents will be celebrating San Francisco Gay Pride this weekend, which is held at the Civic Center. This is also the weekend for one of the best-attended Dykes on Bikes celebrations in the country. Take a look at my preview of San Francisco Gay Pride 2011 for more on what to expect.

Consult the full worldwide calendar of late June Gay Pride events for links to articles on several other festivals and parades set for this weekend. These include Minneapolis, Seattle, St. Louis, Santa Fe, St. Petersburg, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Anchorage, and many others.

In the past month, starting with the San Francisco Giants, four different Major League Baseball teams have joined the It Gets Better Project, the fast-growing campaign that uses the power of personal videos to help LGBT youth grapple with the many challenges they face on the path to adulthood. Following a Change.org petition campaign launched by an ardent fan named Sean Chapin, the Giants recorded a video, which they contributed to It Gets Better, the site founded by activists Dan Savage and Terry Miller - so far, more than 10,000 LGBT adults and allies have contributed videos to the site, and another 368,000 (as of June 15) have taken the pledge to join the It Gets Better movement.

The Giants video on Youtube, which features players Matt Cain, Sergio Romo, Andres Torres, and Barry Zito - along with the team's batting coach Hensley Muelens, received more than 125,000 views during its first two weeks.

Since San Francisco joined the campaign, the Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox, and - on June 10 - the Seattle Mariners have also announced they will produce "It Gets Better" videos. There's also a petition circulating on Change.org urging the New York Yankees to join the campaign. Currently more than 6,500 people have signed the Yankees petition.

This story makes me happy for all kinds of reasons, having grown up an ardent baseball fan (and player, right into my high school years). I can still recite inanely obscure bits of baseball trivia off the top of my head. I continue to follow MLB baseball enthusiastically, and I can't say that before this year I'd ever thought much about the sheer absence of GLBT outreach from the sport. I just figured that this would happen eventually, as prevailing attitudes change. And one might argue that these recent efforts by four big-league teams are a sign of just that, a steadily rising acceptance of gays and lesbians throughout the country (albeit more dramatically in some places than others).

There's been only one openly gay Major League player, a backup outfielder named Glenn Burke, who played briefly for the A's and Dodgers in the late '70s. He died of complications from AIDS in 1995, and his struggle to fit into the staunchly hetero framework of pro baseball was chronicled last year in the documentary Out: The Glenn Burke Story. Interestingly, Burke's manager with the Dodgers, Tommy Lasorda, had an openly gay son (Tommy Jr.), whom Burke befriended (some say dated). It's been alleged that Lasorda had Burke traded to the A's because his chummy relationship with his son, whose homosexuality he never accepted. Tommy Lasorda Jr. also died of complications from AIDS, a few years before Burke.

The only other openly gay man who ever played in the Majors is Read More...