Gay news anchors of the world, Rachel Maddow has a message for you: come out.
During an interview with The Guardian published this week, Maddow spoke out on the importance of lesbian visibility in the media. She was asked if she felt frustration towards well-known news presenters who are assumed to be gay and don’t come out. She said, "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."
Maddow is one of two openly gay anchors on American news network MSNBC, along with daytime anchor Thomas Roberts. Always out and unapologetically so, she often discusses her partner (artist Susan Mikula) and defends both herself and the LGBT community on air.
The interview has received much attention, garnering a response from Maddow in her blog. She said she wasn't referring to anyone specific in her comments and listed what she called her "ethics of coming out." Her ethics are:
1. 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.
2. We should all get to decide for ourselves the "if and when we feel that we can" part of that.
3. 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.
image: villagevoice.com
