Quote Originally Posted by gaystoryman
If No One Knows You Are Gay, you make bigots appear to be right about gays.......

GREAT post, storyman. I do think coming out is a VERY important thing for people to do (hey, Tom Cruise, are you listening? LOL!), but I also firmly believe that it's a decision that people have to make in their own time. Also, being in the entertainment industry, I acknowledge the importance of "silence" if you want to establish a successful career before THEN derailing it by coming out. (LOL! Kidding!) But let's face it: for folks like Tommy boy, coming out in the beginning of your career would immediately destroy your chances of "breaking through" to the mainstream, where you could potentially have the most influence. Melissa Etheridge and Ellen Degeneres timed their coming outs very smartly, and I applaud them for it.

That said, I think it's EXTREMELY important to have openly gay people who are out from the start. But the truth is, they make great role models chiefly for GAY kids who look up to such folks as role models.

I think it's important to have a balance of both, b/cuz social change has to be accomplished in both communities, not just in our own. And if you never have the opportunity to get to a point where you can influence people, you can never have the influence you might have had if you'd calculated it. Personally, I think it's kinda cool that people like Melissa and Ellen reached the point they wanted to reach in their careers, then said, "Haha, fooled you!"