Why I support the outing campaign.
Great article by Kevin Naff, Managing Editor of the Washington Blade.
A few of my favorite excerpts (bolded text by Julien's List):
Cooper chooses the closet over honesty.
“The whole thing about being a reporter is that you’re supposed to be an observer and to be able to adapt with any group you’re in,” Cooper told New York magazine, “and I don’t want to do anything that threatens that.”
Does he believe that female and African-American reporters lack credibility to cover stories since their minority status is showing? Should any heterosexuals who let it slip that they’re married to someone of the opposite sex be kept off the air, or does his rule apply only to gay journalists?
(Note to Cooper: I have been a journalist for as long as you have and being open about my sexual orientation has never cost me a job, a story, a source or a promotion.)
And here is the money quote:
The biggest sleeping asset in the fight for full gay equality lies in the shadows of the closet. When we live openly, we force those around us to reconsider their negative views of homosexuality. That’s when the stereotypes give way to understanding and real change occurs.
No Human Rights Campaign ad campaign in the “red states” can produce the impact of gays who live in those states actually coming out.
How can we expect the construction worker making $20,000 a year to come out when the rich and pampered are still hiding in the closet? How will gays living in Peoria find the fortitude to live honest lives, when the gay denizens of New York and Hollywood won’t?
No one is asking Anderson Cooper to wear a pink triangle on the air or Jodie Foster to ride with the “Dykes on Bikes” contingent. Simply acknowledging the truth — whatever it is — would be enough.
We need role models and spokespeople to boost visibility, increase understanding and, most importantly, to inspire those living less privileged lives to come out and stand up to those who would deny us the right to marry, to adopt children and to go to work free from the prospect of legal discrimination.
Shame on the rich and famous closet cases who have let us down.
