Holiday Update: Out is in; explorers with poor navigational skills are out.

In this week's Blawg Review #285, Freedom to Differ's Peter Black commemorates National Coming Out Day, which for some reason is known in the United States and Canada as "Columbus Day" and "Thanksgiving Day" respectively. As Black explains:

National Coming Out Day was founded by Robert Eichberg, a founder of The Experience workshop, and National Gay Rights Advocates head Jean O'Leary during a 1988 meeting of LGBT activists as a day to celebrate coming out. The date of October 11 was chosen to mark the anniversary of the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, which had taken place four months earlier. National Coming Out Day is marked by events all over America, as well as in many other countries around the world, any countries, including Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Croatia, Poland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

His focus this week is on legal blogs, bloggers, and posts which address LGBT issues; a particular highlight is a round-up of various posts concerning the recent suicide of American Tyler Clementi, after his college roommate broadcast video of his homosexual encounter. Though National Coming Out Day celebrates voluntary outing, this involuntary one has been the object of much commentary across the legal blogosphere for some time now.

Mister Thorne, whom I've had the pleasure to meet at a couple of legal blogging meet-ups, is scheduled to host next week's Blawg Review #286 at his set in style blog.