Coming Out Is Not A Choice
April 27, 2011 4 Comments
Is coming out a personal matter (of choice and timing) or do high profile LGBT individuals have a responsibility to open up about their sexuality?
Openly lesbian news anchor Rachel Maddow recently said she believes gay news presenters have an obligation to come out of the closet.
“I’m sure other people in the business have considered reasons why they’re doing what they’re doing, but I do think that if you’re gay you have a responsibility to come out.”
In 1977 Harvey Milk began urging people to come out for the greater good, yet the issue remains almost as contentious today as it did 34 years ago.
“I would like to see every gay doctor come out, every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let that world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody would imagine. I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights,” he implored.
While Maddow showed great courage in coming out, having grown up in a “very conservative, very nasty little town,” she was already “out” when she was offered her job as anchor on a liberal news program on MSNBC. For others; jobs, families and livelihoods may be on the line.
Rachel Maddow seems to have realised this as she followed the interview with a blog post explaining:
I’ve long held three basic beliefs about the ethics of coming out:
- Gay people — generally speaking — have a responsibility to our own community and to future generations of gay people to come out, if and when we feel that we can.
- We should all get to decide for ourselves the “if and when we feel that we can” part of that.
- Closeted people should reasonably expect to be outed by other gay people if (and only if) they prey on the gay community in public, but are secretly gay themselves.
Whether you’re a news reader, school teacher or candle-stick maker the ethics and circumstances of coming out, are rarely black and white.
Contact the author here: brianna@morningquickie.com
It would be nice to see more openly gay role models in the public eye. But taking away choice is not right. Hopefully it’ll get to a point where sexuality is irrelevant and people won’t make an issue about being gay or feel like they have to hide it out of fear or shame.
I can’t imagine it being anything but horribly awkward. It’s not like I had to decide when to tell my parents I liked dick. And even though it’s what they probably expected, it would still be super weird.
Yes, it’s not like we have to come out and say we’re straight! To me sexuality means nothing, it’s irrelevant, like whoever you want – it’s all good! But for many I guess it’s still a big deal and there is still a lot of hate, judgement and fear surrounding the issue. I hope this will change, soon. However with ‘gay’ being one of the ‘coolest’, most frequently used insults around at the moment, I’m not so sure.
I hope so too Sara.
I hear, not only ‘gay’, but ‘fag’ and ‘poof’ being thrown around as insults all too often, so I’m not sure either. Slowly but surely, fingers crossed.