Chinese gays are chasing the elusive rainbow

Watching gay men and lesbians in China struggle for basic rights and dignity is like hurtling through a time warp to the past.

Job discrimination. Social ostracism. Broken-hearted parents. Lives of deception, denial and depression. Police oppression. Brutality from vicious straight men or teenage hoodlums looking for easy targets.

And those are just the visible hurdles of being gay in a straight society.