This week's news that Anderson Cooper had finally come out of the closet 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. Yesterday, 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 from internalized homophobia, bullying, or ostracism. And high-profile, successful LGBT people 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 but 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 but 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, fiancés, 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. MORE!
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