I consider being out of the closet a moral issue, and it's refreshing to see it framed similarly by someone else.
I just ran across this quote by Rachel Maddow, who now has her own show on MSNBC.
She says:
"I think that there is a moral imperative to be out, and I think that if you’re not out, you have to come to an ethical understanding with yourself why you are not. And it shouldn’t be something that is excused lightly. I don’t think that people should be forced out of the closet, but I think that every gay person, sort of, ought to push themselves in that regard. Because it’s not just you. It’s for the community and it’s for the country."Amen!
This is from the After Ellen article, "Rachel Maddow, Anchor Woman."
Thanks, Rachel, for being of like mind.
1 comment:
This is such an interesting statement. My first thought was that it takes a lot of courage and personal strength to live up to this, and then I thought, well, it takes a lot of personal strength to live up to any moral code, right? And then it dawned on me that this is the really interesting and challenging thing about being a part of any minority community - and perhaps this is one reason why some people wind up twisted and broken by their different-ness - it's demanding in a way that the mainstream simply isn't. Should be, but isn't.
As a member of the mainstream, it can be soporifically easy to not live up to the basic moral code. To let myself stop worrying about things that aren't literally within 10 yards of me, stop reading articles and commentary that enrage and depress me, stop being informed and perhaps stop boring the living crap out of people at dinner parties. But maybe that's part of what's wrong with society these days, on both sides of the ocean (and democracy, while I'm at it - sorry but it's a bit of an obsession at the moment).
Perhaps it's easier to be harder on one's self within a minority like the gay community, because the lens focuses more easily among a smaller crowd? I don't know, but it would be good if this kind of thinking penetrated the mainstream as well. We all have a moral responsibility in the way we conduct our lives, and we should all be held accountable for it - by our community.
Here endeth my soapbox for the day. Sorry to eat up so much comment space, but thanks for getting my brain moving this morning!
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