More than any other publication, The Gay City News has written about the plight of the LGBT community overseas. One of its star writers, Doug Ireland, has reported about the plight of gay men in Iran over the last few months. His coverage has been impressive and ground-breaking.

This week, The Gay City News, printed a long and powerful piece by Michael T. Luongo, who went to Iraq to find out the truth about the current status of the LGBT community in Iraq. Handsome and an extraordinary writer, Michael joins the ranks of Sebastian Junger and Robert Kaplan in making the world their writing pad. These great journalists and writers fly directly into the world hotspots to find truth and pass it on to us. Having someone as accomplished as Michael reporting directly from Iraq on the LGBT community is a real gift. Michael has focused on the Middle East for his writings as Kaplan focused on The Balkans and Junger on adventure. In fact, he captures the substance and adventure of both of these talented writers.

The Gay City News piece is a must read. Michael captures the horrors that face many members of the LGBT community:

"Here I met Saleem, Sirwan's handsome friend from Baghdad; Sarkis, a Kurdish-American who wore army clothes and had bruises on his face he said came from an Improvised Explosive Device; and Dozan, a tall, thin Freddie Mercury look-alike visiting from Sweden, where he had moved 10 years ago. Dozan struck me as daring, often leaving to talk to men who sat alone. His interactions sometimes led to more than conversation. These contacts in time got him into trouble; about a month after visiting Suleymania, I learned that Dozan had been arrested and medically tortured by the Kurdish police.

By phone, Dozan told me, "I met a man and we were kissing, and a little hugging also. And someone discovered that in the park and called the police." He explained that "they took us to the hospital and they tested us to see if they could find some sperm" in his anus using a medical probe in what was a painful procedure.

Dozan said they "brought us to the police station. We were transferred into another room and there was no fan and no light, but it was a big hole in the wall. They looked into that small hole in the wall and they threw also a lot of shit words to us."

Suleymania might be liberal for Kurdistan, but clearly it is not that way for gays. Still, Kurdistan paled in comparison to reports of repression and outright murders of gay men in Baghdad, much of it originally brought to the attention of the West by journalist Doug Ireland."

Luongo also placed himself at risk in Baghdad:

"Getting into the Red Zone for the interview I had set up with one of Ali Hili's contacts put me in mind of a James Bond movie. Well, sort of. I was met at CPIC by a security man, a handsome Brit with a gun and piercing blue eyes, though his car was a beat-up Toyota driven by an overweight Iraqi. The hotel where I had my interview was only about a mile away, but this being Baghdad, it was well more than an hour before we arrived there.

The British security outfit operates as much under the radar as possible, and this meant crossing checkpoints not like an occupier - that is, easy passage with the flash of a badge - but as locals. Our first obstacle came almost immediately - a checkpoint where we waited with everyday Iraqis for body checks, car inspections, and weapons searches, as I beat back an impending sense that something terrible could happen at any moment.

Right after we cleared that and our car began to move away from the checkpoint, it came under attack from mortar fire. My guards acted as if it were an everyday occurrence, which of course for Baghdad it is. I found the experience surprisingly exciting, my head moving with each ear-piercing boom, which my caretakers misinterpreted as fear. "

He makes clear that the status for the LGBT community is the same or even worse than before the invasion by American forces:

"The American official I was urged to speak with, asked about the difficulties of discerning the truth behind the killings in Baghdad and which ones might be due to the victim being gay, said, "It's part of Iraqi culture to be dramatic about things and exaggerate, but I don't think with this that's the case." The difficulties for gays in Iraq, he said, have worsened since the previous regime, but they were far from perfect then either.

"Even under Saddam, it was bad," he said. "They didn't have Internet, and they could not do large networking, but they had places, they had their small circles where they could socialize."

His words were nearly the same as what Ali Hili had told me when I began my work as the American official added, "I have even heard that there were clubs in hotels where they could meet. Some Iraqis say even though they could not be out, this was better than now:"

I expect we will be hearing a lot more from Michael T. Luongo and that is a good thing.