GLAAD’s President Jarrett Barrios and I had a chat at the recent media awards in Los Angeles. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation works to empower people to share their stories, tries to hold the media accountable for the words and images they present, and helps grassroots organizations communicate effectively.
Recently, GLAAD issued a Call to Action against CNN for featuring discredited “ex-gay” Richard Cohen on a segment regarding California’s “gay cure” bill as well as ABC daytime’s decision to pull the plug on the One Life to Live gay storyline that featured the gay characters of Oliver Fish (Scott Evans) and Kyle Lewis (Brett Claywell).
Greg in Hollywood spoke to Barrios:
Q. Let me ask you about what happened on One Life to Live and the Fish and Kyle storyline being written out. It was like a dagger in our hearts.
Q. Let me ask you about what happened on One Life to Live and the Fish and Kyle storyline being written out. It was like a dagger in our hearts.
A. When you think about the demographic of the folks that we need to persuade to support gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender equality, it’s a lot of those women – and men – who stay at home during the daytime and watch daytime television. Having an openly gay character in a relationship, having an openly gay depiction of affection and love, it’s so important. When we talk about gay marriage, it’s not about special rights, it’s about people who love each other. If you can’t understand that love because you’ve never seen it, you’re not as likely to support our equality. That’s why that storyline has been so important. It’s really unfortunate that things didn’t continue.
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