Yesterday, a colleague asked me why I thought Rosie O'Donnell was being added to The View, to replace Meredith Viera, who's replacing Katie Couric on the Today Show. "Don't they already have a comedienne, that Joy woman?", he asked.
"Rosie's more than a comic", I replied. "She's been in movies, she's done the talk thing, she has the gay activist thing going for her..." And a hush fell over the room. There was an openly gay colleague within spitting distance. How COULD I?
People, people, people. The whole point about being an uncloseted gay person is that you want the world to just accept you for what you are. I mention Rosie's gay activism purely as fact, which it is, which is what "normalising" a gay lifestyle is all about, not hushing about it as if it's something embarrassing. People acted like I should not say "gay" in front of a gay person! It's ridiculous and THEY are the ones who don't get it, not me. My gay colleague didn't flinch. He gets it. I'm astounded that so few do.
I recall years ago, another colleague at another station asking me if a singer who was due to drop by our show that week, 'has a husband and family'. "Oh, no, she's gay", I replied, matter of factly. "I think she has a long-term partner." You could have heard a pin drop.
It's the truth! It wasn't a hidden. dark secret I was trotting out in a gossipy manner for ridicule. It was the honest answer to his question. So when we finally did the interview, this moron asks the singer live on air, "So, any plans to get married and have a family?" This is long before gay marriage was an option, remember. He was being a dinosaur. I wanted to crawl under the table and hide. She was taken aback and stammered something about being in love and we moved on.
Later I asked him why the $(%*# he would pull a stunt like that and his reply floored me. "I had to. It's a natural question and people would wonder why I DIDN'T ask." That, my friends, is bullshit. What he's saying is, he wanted desperately to make her seem NOT gay, because in his world, gay wasn't acceptable. Asking a question that created the assumption that she was straight after I had told him she wasn't, put her on the defensive. But then again he always was, and still is, an ass.