[Commentary] [USA] Thoughts on Anderson Cooper and the ‘private lives’ of LGBT people

[Stephanie Stevens]

LGBTQ Nation, USA


Filed: Thursday, July 5, 2012

John M. Becker

Views & Voices

Thoughts on Anderson Cooper and the ‘private lives’ of LGBT people

By John M. Becker
Director of Communications and Development, Truth Wins Out


This week’s news that Anderson Cooper had finally come out of the
closet <http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/07/anderson-cooper-the-fact-is-im-gay-always-have-been-always-will-be/>
brought a smile to my face.

Sure, it wasn’t a watershed moment like the 1997 coming-out of Ellen
DeGeneres, but it does carry significance. After all, his show is
viewed every night by millions of people across America.

[Photo: Anderson Cooper]

Thanks to Cooper, many of those people became familiar with an LGBT
person for the very first time.

Cooper’s decision to come out also sets a great example for LGBT youth
and brings hope to those who still suffer with internalized
homophobia, bullying, or ostracism. And high-profile, successful LGBTs
like Anderson Cooper undermine one of the most malicious lies made by
the anti-gay movement: that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people
are broken, unhappy, and empty simply because of who they are and who
they love.

By coming out of his glass closet, Anderson Cooper isn’t just
liberating himself, he’s helping to make his entire community more
visible and bringing us just a little bit closer to full equality —
and that’s definitely something to celebrate.

I’m dismayed, however, by the number of people I’ve observed on
Facebook and Twitter reacting to Anderson Cooper’s coming out with
indifference, trying desperately to sound enlightened with remarks
like, “I couldn’t care less what he does in his private life.”

While I understand that there was a time where the whole “my private
life is none of your business” thing was an acceptable way to deflect
nosy inquiry into one’s sexual orientation and blunt societal
homophobia, in most parts of the country that time has long since
passed.

Discussion of LGBT identity as a matter of an individual’s “private
life” is not only utterly useless, it’s counterproductive and more
than a little infuriating.

In our heterosexist culture, straight people feel no obligation to
keep any details of their love lives private. We’re surrounded by art,
music, literature, drama, and media dissecting, lamenting, and
extolling every facet of love between opposite-sex couples.

How often do we hear about the boyfriends/girlfriends, fiancées,
spouses, or even the one-night stands of everyone from our straight
friends and co-workers to heterosexual celebrities, major and minor?

Yet as soon as LGBT people enter into the discussion, love and
sexuality become a matter of a person’s “private life?” Give me a
break.

What it really boils down to is that LGBT people and couples feel
pressure to keep our love and relationships private in order to avoid
making straight people uncomfortable. I, for one, refuse to make this
kind of accommodation for others’ bigotry
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-becker/hes-my-husband-thank-you-_b_1119522.html>
, so I will continue pushing back by speaking just as freely about my
love for and marriage to my husband Michael as my straight friends do
about their relationships.

As far as I’m concerned, this flagrantly hypocritical double standard
only serves to silence our voices and prevent us from telling our
stories — and as we know, breaking our silence and telling our stories
is how the movement for LGBT civil rights has achieved so much so
quickly.

Keeping our lives, loves, and relationships “private” only perpetuates
the shame of the cultural closet and postpones our equality.

Gay hero Harvey Milk once said that the LGBT community “will not win
our rights by staying silently in our closets.”

I believe that Milk was right: coming out is the single most important
thing LGBT people can do in the struggle for our civil rights and
human dignity. So I’d like to echo his words and encourage everyone —
LGBT people and allies alike — to come out, provided they feel ready
and that it’s safe to do so.

Closets — even glass ones — are simply not places where people can
fully embrace and be true to themselves. I don’t want any part of
that, and as his words
<http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/07/anderson-cooper-the-fact-is-im-gay.html>
prove, neither does Anderson Cooper.

--

This column first appeared at Truth Wins Out
<http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/07/26718/> .

John M. Becker is the Director of Communications and Development for
Truth Wins Out <http://www.truthwinsout.org/> , a non-profit
organization that fights anti-gay religious extremism.


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http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/07/thoughts-on-anderson-cooper-and-the-private-lives-of-lgbt-people/