When I found out about George Takei, I thought that might be the 20th most interesting thing about him, as I’d read most of his autobiography.

When I found out about Stephen Fry, I thought that might be the 50th most interesting thing about him. His life and works are so varied at this point that I’d thought of him as beyond sexuality altogether.

And when I found out about James Randi, I figure this won’t even make the top 100, even if you factor in the rumor that he lived with the main character in his Carlos hoax for 20 years. This is the man who made it his mission to take down spoon-bender Uri Geller and humiliated him on the Tonight Show, who all but created Penn & Teller, who consulted for Alice Cooper’s stage show, and on and on and on…

I don’t know what I’m really measuring here, but it’s something. It might even be used to measure straight people if used hypothetically. I’ll explore this idea later; it’s probably nothing.

tl;dr: For a lesser celebrity, this might be big news.

I’m sorry it took him so long to come out and am grateful to have seen his work growing up, something that would have been impossible if we were out way back then. An admitted gay man on a kid’s show!? Impossible.

The other thing that interests me is how we use the learned contempt of homosexuality – again, particularly in men – to get men to conform to the straight (literally) and narrow of acceptable male behavior. Gay people are only the visible victims of homophobia. What man, of a certain age, hasn’t learned to fear the epithet,”Faggot!”, for behavior that didn’t meet the desired norm? How many avowedly straight men would be comfortable looking and acting like Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show – say, for Halloween?

So, the current stance is kind of, I-accept-gay-people liberal, mixed with a very strong fear of not being seen as manly. Well, how else are you going to force men to do all the self-destructive, inhuman things we want men to do, when it suits our culture?

But Randi is famous, and his reputation reflects upon the great causes he champions. So this can’t have been an easy decision, particularly given the attitudes he’s grown up with.

Will Christians take his scorn of them less seriously now? (“he’s just pissed ‘cos he doesn’t get to go to heaven!”)

Seems to me that being gay is very accepted nowadays, though. Brokeback Mountain just seemed anachronistic to me.

What things are still concealed?

Coming out as a pedo could get even celibate people lynched, put in the child protection register, and basically ruin their lives: even if they are a child themselves at the time!

Coming out as an ABDLer might get people equated with pedos and lynched, or might affect people’s careers (it’s hard to promote someone to Director when you imagine them in a diaper).

Coming out as a furry could affect careers (disclosure: I am a furry: it’s affected my career positively), and they’re apparently occasionally assaulted if they wear a fursuit (I know nobody this has happened to).

Coming out as an advocate of open relationships could destroy professionals, I guess. Imagine if the wife of Clinton or Tiger Woods or any of the recent footballers had just said “So? Our marriage is open, what’s the problem?”

I could care less about Randi’s sexual orientation, but I’m glad to hear that he has overcome the fear of releasing his secret.

Anyway, I’m glad he doesn’t have to worry about keeping this a secret anymore. He’s one of the few people from the skeptical movement that I really like. For one thing, he debunks pseudoscience, and mostly leaves religion alone. Also, he seems to enjoy science, rather than simply hate non-science. He’s a happy skeptic! New tag? I think I may be caffeinated.

Go Randi!

You say that as if “ridiculous condemnation of, and hypocrisy about, sexuality” was a thing of the past. The parents of Lawrence King (shot to death in his own classroom Feb. ’08), or 20-year-old Angie Zapata (bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher in her own home July ’08), or 19-year-old Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado (stabbed, decapitated, dismembered and his remains burned in November ’09)…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.O._Green_School_shooting

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_12116119

http://www.towleroad.com/2009/11/gay-puerto-rican-teen-decapitated-dismembered-and-burned.html

I could go on to give a lot more examples, but if you’re interested in just how disgustingly *common* this sort of thing is, take a look here:

http://enmasse.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?t=991

I would venture to guess that most, if not all, of those readers expressing surprise that this is some sort of “big deal” are not of a minority sexual orientation.

I think there is a big difference between coming out when you are established , rather than still trying to make it. Regardless i think it’s a great move.

Here’s a random question: how do gay and bisexual people find out whether someone they’re interested in/attracted to shares their sexual orientation?

1) Go to a place with a lot of other available gay and bisexual people. There is a reason for gay nights at clubs and bars. Straight people do it too. We call them singles bars.

2) The same way you straight people try and figure out if someone they are interested is available. Chat them up, drop hints, and see if you pick up on any hints. Build up a little confidence that they are interested and then ask. Granted, being gay is a bit more of a mine field of rejection if you are dense when it come to determining if people like you, but it isn’t that much more. Straight people can ask out people that are already unavailable because they are dating/married (in addition to just flat out not liking you). The only real differences is that if you are gay, your chances of getting rejection from a random person due to sexual orientation is higher.

It isn’t a big deal. In places where being gay isn’t taboo, it is no more or less of an issue than that of straight folk getting reject due to the person in question being unavailable. Your only real danger is if you live in some cultural backwater where being ‘outted’ results in something bad happening.

Yeah, all those Wonder Woman junkies and Mormon carnies really annoy me too.

Losers…Natural Selection…idiots….Darwinism….

Yea, I’ve always found Randi to be something of a hater, and if I had to bestow “hero” into anyone in the skeptical community, it would definitely be Martin Gardner.

That said, I am supremely uninterested in people’s sexual orientation (unless I’m involved with them sexually, doh!), and I can only hope that we continue to move to a world in which more people are as uninterested as I….

Personally, I think we’ll have truly “made it” as a society, when you don’t even need to “come out” anymore.
When being gay is of so little consequence that you don’t even need to announce it to people.

Well, I can name several guys who think it’s hot.

However, this isn’t about society. It’s about Randi. The man probably feels that he’s either been “living a lie”, or more likely, just feels that he’s been (to one degree or another) dishonest to the (many) people who care about him and admire him. It hurts to be dishonest to people you care about or who care about you, especially if you’re someone who takes forthright honesty as seriously as he does. The other thing is that by hiding who he is, in some way he’s implying that his nature is shameful, which it isn’t. So he gets it off his chest. He feels better. Good for him.

@ #45: That’s crap. Restricting your dating options to people you meet in bars is no way to live. There are a lot of great people who never ever go to bars. For your second comment, also incorrect: hitting on someone of the same sex when you don’t know their orientation (and they don’t know yours) is a really damn quick way to ruin a new friendship or work relationship. It shouldn’t be this way, but a lot of even otherwise open-minded cool people can get pretty freaked out if they’re hit on by a member of the same sex. It’s way better just to be out and be done with it.

Option 2 requires “coming out” to someone before you are sure of them, which may result in them “outing” them.

The problem exists with all non-vanilla sexualities, though. The internet helps a LOT in finding people who share the same interest.

Randi has always been one of my idols (although I suspect he’d loath being called that) since I was old enough to read and appreciate his original mind, heroic struggle against the forces of lies and deceit, not to mention his fantastic sense of humor. So there’s a new adjective with which to describe him . . .

I guess he’s the Gay Fantastic Heroic Original Amazing Randi? How’s that all going to fit on a poster?

And he’s not suddenly being ‘gay’ – if you listen to the podcast he’s in a long-term relationship. He’s not been fully publicly out (although hello? watch that 60 Minutes program with him on YouTube and get to the part where they say he’s living alone with 2 cats and a bloke. DING! ;-) but not exactly dishonest – apparently family and friends have known since year dot.

But I partly agree with Starjack – this reminds me of my partner’s railing as part of the GLF against the ‘stately homos’ of the previous generation. He just wasn’t ‘interested’ in Stonewall if you listen to the podcast. Like Ian McKellen or even Tatchell he’s a latecomer, and that does deserve a little criticism. If you weren’t part of the fight and then come out to reap the benefits it is a little like ‘where were you?’ – understandable.

That said; entertainment industry is incredibly closety – and all those crazy psychics (some of which I read* as closets too!) wanting a reason to discredit him – I understand it. But still I can see why people in the community might be a little wary. Still he fights a lot of the same nonsense, the podcast is right there is a lot of overlap – so if the rightwingers and nutjobs attack him, I think we should defend him.

Just shame he didn’t do this 20-30 years ago!

*I mean read as in Gaydar rather than psychically LOL. Maybe he should do a study on gaydar?

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.