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Josué has been living in single­-room accommodation in a cheap hotel on Granville Street for the past five weeks. The carpet is dirty and cut in several places, the paint chips from the walls, and what little food there is in the refrigerator was donated by a local charity. "Sometimes I cry because I really cannot go back to my country," Josué (not his real name) told the Georgia Straight . "I really cannot go back, because I know that they will kill me."

Josué has applied for refugee status in Canada. He uses a pseudonym on the advice of his lawyer, Rob Hughes, because his claim remains under review. According to the personal-information file Josué submitted to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada , he is afraid to return to his country of origin because he believes he will be killed for his sexual orientation.

Born and raised in Colombia, Josué loved his home there. But Josué is gay. He says he was forced into hiding and to run for his life.

Generally speaking, if you are gay the world is not an easy place to find peace.

"There are many, many places where it is very, very dangerous to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered," barbara findlay, a human-rights lawyer, told the Straight .

"I got in a lot of trouble with my family because they did not want to have a gay son," Josué said. He moved in with his partner when he was 16 years old, and the two lived together, under various circumstances, for 12 years. "He made me the person that I am now. He made me, he taught me, he showed me the world and life," Josué said.

In Colombia, Josué said, he had an apartment, he ran a small business, and he owned property that he rented for a modest sum. For a time, life was comfortable.

Then one day Josué's brothers came asking for a favour. He said they forced him to use the property he owned as collateral for a loan. The loan was never repaid and Josué lost everything. When he went to the police, the rest of his family turned on him. "My mother told me that she would send somebody to kill me," he said.

Josué claimed his family tried to follow through with the threat. As he moved around the country in fear, people followed. They left messages on Josué's phone and sent e-mails promising to find him and make him pay for being gay.

"What were you thinking you fucking bitch gay? We know that you moved from the apartment on 48th street. We are going to take you.…We are looking for you again," one e-mail read.

The Colombian police, Josué said, whether for lack of resources or lack of will, would not help. Last March, he said, the men his family had hired caught up with him. "For about three weeks I was inside because I couldn't go out. The murderers were outside my home," Josué said. "I was afraid. I called the police many times. But they never came." That was when Josué knew he would have to leave.

FINDLAY SAID THAT in many countries, one of two things happens: "Either there are laws which make it illegal to be gay, or even without laws, the police harass queers and they do so with impunity."

Michael Battista, a Toronto immigration lawyer, told the Straight in a phone interview that Canadian refugee claims made on the basis of sexual orientation come from all over the world. He noted that the successful ones are made from countries with well-documented histories of persecution. "So we're looking at the Middle East, Africa, countries in Asia, South America…" he said, trailing off. "There really isn't any corner of the globe that escapes allegations that they're persecuting lesbians and gays."

Battista recalled the emotional story of an old Iranian man's arrival in Toronto. An immigration official asked him on what basis he was making a refugee claim. The old man was speechless, Battista said. "So, eventually, the immigration officer at the airport suspected his sexual orientation and said, 'Is it because you're gay? Is that why you're here?' And he burst into tears because it was the first kind of public acknowledgment of who he really was."

And there are stories like that of a man from Zimbabwe who escaped to Canada after the president there, Robert Mugabe, ordered gays to be rounded up "like pigs and dogs", Battista said.

Closer to home, Jamaica was recently condemned by Amnesty International as a country particularly dangerous for gays. A public statement issued by AI in April 2007 reads: "The organization is particularly concerned by reports of mob violence against persons perceived as homosexuals who are targeted because of their appearance or behavior, which seems to be increasing in frequency."

Alan Herbert, a gay former city councillor and long-time participant in Vancouver's Pride Parade, told the Straight in a phone interview that even relatively liberal countries such as the United States still need to improve the way people of different sexual orientations are treated.

"Gay men and women are, in law, second-class citizens in the U.S.," Herbert said. He argued the U.S.'s Defense of Marriage Act, which "expressly and explicitly forbids any kind of civil union, marriage, or domestic partnership [between persons of the same sex] in the majority of states in the U.S.", lowers the status of gay individuals to a point where they are less human than heterosexuals. "If you are a gay man living in the United States, you are decidedly second-class under law," he said.

One theme of this year's Vancouver Pride parade is human rights. John Boychuk, president of the Vancouver Pride Society, told the Straight that with gays still being persecuted around the world, "We realized that there was something that we could do as a role model with Vancouver Pride Society and as a community at large." He said that with this year's parade, the Pride Society is reminding the gay community where it came from, what it has been through, and where it still has to go.

The Immigration and Refugee Board does not keep statistics on the number of refugees admitted to Canada on the basis of sexual orientation. However, according to lawyer Hughes–who specializes in representing gay and lesbian refugee claimants–hundreds of such claims are made to Canada every year.

A Vancouver spokesperson for the IRB, Melissa Anderson, agreed with that estimate. Anderson said, however, that it is difficult for the board to maintain statistics on refugee claims made on the basis of sexual orientation because those claims are lumped into a more general category called "membership in a particular social group".

Colleen French, a communications coordinator for the Canadian Council on Refugees, told the Straight from Montreal that Canada has a very good reputation abroad for accepting refugee claims made by gays and lesbians escaping persecution. "Particularly if we compare with other countries," she noted.

"But the problem in Canada is that the decision-making is very uneven," French added, "largely due to the fact the government has not put into place the IRB Refugee Appeal Division."

Hughes explained that the appeal division should have been implemented in June 2002, when the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act came into effect. "But the government of the day said they needed a year to implement the provisions," Hughes said. "Well, it's been five years." As things stand now, once an individual's refugee claim is denied, there is little hope he or she will be able to remain in Canada.

In May 2006, Bloc Québécois MP Nicole Demers (Laval) introduced an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to ensure that an appeal division will exist in the near future. The bill has since passed through the House of Commons and will go before the Senate for a second reading after the 2007 summer break.

JOSUÉ MADE IT TO Vancouver in May through work with a cruise line. After the job was finished, he was escorted to Vancouver International Airport for his flight home. Josué said he found a customs agent and told him: "Sir, I cannot go back to my country.…Sir, because I'm gay and because they want to kill me."

A Canadian immigration official fed Josué and promised to help him. "Her name was Rachel," Josué recalled. "I will never forget that name, because she was like my angel."

Josué was taken to a Citizenship and Immigration Canada office in downtown Vancouver, where he was interviewed for several hours. Then he was granted refugee-claimant status, given documents for his referral to the refugee-protection division of the IRB, and told he could go.

"And then I was out in the city with my new life," Josué said. "At that moment, I felt very safe. I felt happy."

Today, he waits for his refugee hearing, when he will be interviewed by an IRB member who will decide his fate. If his claim is approved, he will be permitted to file for permanent-resident status in Canada as a refugee on the basis of sexual orientation.