Surprise: Anderson Cooper is Gay

Following a host of other out celebs (such as Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons, and Zachary Quinto) Anderson Cooper came out as gay today in a published e-mail to Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast. You can see the email here. I almost didn’t write anything about it, because even the novelty of coming out quietly is starting to wear off, and that’s really quite encouraging.

Who in the World is Richard Grenell?

Richard Grenell

One of the strange things about presidential campaigns is that they will often thrust previously unknown people into the spotlight. I mean, how many people could name Alaska’s governor prior to 2008? Not a lot. Romney’s not even the official nominee yet and his campaign’s already been hit with issues surrounding one of the less well known members of his campaign. Until yesterday, Richard Grenell was Mitt Romney’s spokesperson for foreign policy and national security. If Romney is elected, Grenell probably would have held a high ranking position in his administration. He was going to be a major player. Oh, did I mention Grenell is gay?

Tolerating Intolerance

Coming out of the closet was a gradual process for me. The first person I came out to was a friend in 2003, but I had my biggest coming out in 2005. That’s the year I finally told my parents, and every other little coming out since then has been easy in comparison. Or at least, almost every other coming out has been easy. I have gone back into the closet exactly once in my life, and this is a discussion around that situation.