2006: The End of the Closet
Scott Dagostino finds that it’s a lot harder to keep a secret now

As the AIDS crisis ravaged the gay community in the late ’80s, journalist Michaelangelo Signorile lost his patience with the prominent gay men and women who refused to speak out, hiding in the closet. He began to name names, creating a howling nation-wide debate on what Time magazine then dubbed “outing.” Signorile was denounced as a “fascist” but stood his ground, arguing that “by not reporting about famous gays, the message the media send is clear: Homosexuality is so utterly grotesque that it should never be discussed.”

That era is over.

In 2006, the media discussed homosexuality like never before – frequently and in sharp detail. One of this year’s biggest surprises was anti-gay Evangelical leader Ted Haggard admitting to buying crystal meth and ongoing sex from a gay escort. Mike Jones outed Haggard and “broke the code of the hustlers,” says Signorile. “I think he did an extraordinary thing, to come forward and speak out.” Haggard’s right to privacy ends, Signorile insists, “when he’s harming us or doing destruction.”

ABC News apparently agreed in deciding to publish the online chats between US Republican Congressman Mark Foley and the teenage male pages who worked under him. The mainstream public was appalled by the explicit come-ons to teen boys but angrier still by the revelations that, according to Vanity Fair journalist Gail Sheehy, “everyone knew Mark Foley was gay…[and] conspired for their own purposes to keep the closet half closed.” Meanwhile, Foley’s drinking and cyber-stalking escalated. Eric Johnson, who’s gay and once worked for Foley, said, "I thought the media made a real mistake in keeping Mark's secrets for him.”

“In one sense, I feel proven right,” says Signorile, who now hosts a daily show on Sirius satellite radio. “The closet needed to come down, people needed to talk more openly, but I never would’ve thought it would be the Internet that came together to do that.” Nor could he have imagined that one of the websites breaking the gay stories of 2006 would be from New York gossip blogger Perez Hilton. “I got 4.4 million unique visitors yesterday,” he announces. “I get more readers in one day than Us Weekly, Star magazine and In Touch in one week combined.” Hilton became infamous this year for hounding N’Sync singer Lance Bass out of his closet, but resists the credit. “Coming out is a choice. No one is ever ‘forced’ to come out,” he says. “Lance Bass could have gone on the next couple of years denying he was gay or just not talking about it.” Nevertheless, Hilton says, “I don’t discriminate. I will treat Lance Bass’ secret relationship with Reichen the same way I treat Jessica Simpson’s secret relationship with John Mayer.”

“He’s talking about people being gay and pressuring them to stop lying,” praises Signorile, “If they’re out in public as gay people, why should that be ignored?” Especially when it’s so obvious. “Anderson Cooper is making a bigger deal of it by not taking about it,” gripes Hilton. He admits however, “I do believe that celebrities have a right to privacy and I’ll respect that.” This sounds hilarious coming from a man who has printed photos of Britney Spears’ vagina but Hilton insists, “I will only print something that I personally know to be true. I may joke about Jake Gyllenhaal in a gay way but I am not saying that he’s gay. There’s a difference.”

Hilton says an actor recently confronted him in a coffee shop, screaming, “You’re ruining people’s careers!” He disagrees: “One of my best male friends dated Wentworth Miller. If he were to come out, I don’t think it would hurt his career. They’re not going to fire him from Prison Break.” Hilton also points to the UK, where openly-gay Pop Idol winner Will Young has thrived. “He’s like their Clay Aiken, only hotter.”

TV actors T.R. Knight and Neil Patrick Harris pushed the envelope this fall by coming out while their careers are in full swing (though admittedly pushed somewhat by online gossip). Chicago TV critic Doug Elfman asked, “is the gayness of a theater, movie and TV actor still this worthy of being a top national story? What are we? Pilgrims?” Entertainment Weekly summed it up with the droll headline, “They’re here, they’re queer...we’re used to it.”

And it’s not just celebrities, says Fortune magazine’s Marc Gunther: “[Gay people] are today being embraced by corporate America…the most important factor shaping people's feelings about gay issues is not their age or even their religion...but whether they have relatives, friends or co-workers who are gay.”

Signorile wrote in 1993 that, “as homosexuality becomes more accepted in our society, outing will become more accepted.” By 2006, the closets are emptying fast and the howls of protest have become a yawn.

Scott Dagostino is fab’s deputy editor.