Coming Out: tips for celebs....

I love the article "They're Here, They're Queer...and we're used to it" by Mark Harris that I just read in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly. He writes that "those gay celebrities who keep fighting to pass as straight look like embarrassing antiques - lawsuit-filing Liberaces instead of liberationists."

Harris notes that something is really changing in the culture when Ellen DeGeneres' 'Yep, I'm Gay" Time magazine story in 1996 gives way to 2006 statements from actors Neil Patrick Harris and T.R. Knight which essentially say "Yeah, I'm gay - you wanna make something of it?"

He offers various tips for celebrities who decide to come out. Here are some of them:

1. TRY NOT TO SPEND THE PREVIOUS DECADE LYING: Neither Knight of Harris had constructed elaborate "I just haven't found the right woman" stories that they then had to admit weren't true...It's easier to announce something than to have to announce something AND retract something. You'll find any number of movie stars at the bottom of a big hole they've dug for themselves.

2. SOUND BORED: Statements from both Knight and Harris had the undertone of a shrug, a whiff of "I don't know why people particularly care about this, but I'm gay, and I don't have a problem with it." Setting the tone early - one without a note of apology or grandiosity - helps.

3. IF YOU DON'T WANT BEING GAY TO BE THE MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT YOU, MAKE SURE IT ISN'T: Knight ("Grey's Anatomy") and Harris ("How i Met Your Mother") are both on network television shows and presumably have job security as well as second careers as theater actors. Coming out doesn't look like a desperate grab for attention when you've got a nice gig already.

4. AVOID PROUD CHARACTERIZATIONS OF YOURSELF AS "STRAIGHT-ACTING") which is what Lance Bass did in his People magazine coming out cover story. Writes Harris: Lance Bass, this means you. Guess that's why they call it ACTING."