Jason Collins

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Jason Collins, the NBA veteran who last week announced he was gay, is disputing reports from publishing insiders who say he is shopping a book deal.
Officials at three publishing houses told The Associated Press on Monday that they had been contacted about a planned memoir by Collins, the first active player in any of four major U.S. professional sports leagues to come out as gay. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the proceedings.
Collins tweeted that it wasn’t so: “I have no current plans to write any books. Sorry to disappoint my literary loving fans,” he said, adding a hashtag “GoingToTheGym.”
Collins’ agent, Arn Tellem, also disputed the claim in a statement released Monday night.
“As you can imagine, we’ve been inundated with all kinds of requests and various opportunities, but as of now have not had any discussions on behalf of Jason regarding a potential book deal because Jason has yet to decide if he wants to write a book,” Tellem said.
“Right now my focus is preparing for Jason’s upcoming free agency and securing the best opportunity for him to continue his career,” Tellem added.
The publishing officials said Collins was working on the book with Sports Illustrated’s Franz Lidz, to whom he broke the news that he was gay, and was being represented by Kristine Dahl of International Creative Management. Dahl did not immediately respond to phone and email messages left by the AP.
At least one publisher turned down the book, said one official, who noted the extensive media coverage of Collins and expressed concern that his story already has been told.
Earlier Monday, the Democratic National Committee announced Collins would headline its annual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender gala, on May 29. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, has phoned the 34-year-old athlete to praise him for his courage.
Collins, who has played for six teams during 12 seasons, was most recently a center for the Washington Wizards. He becomes a free agent on July 1.
from The Associated Press
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Ex-Fiancee Of Jason Collins Didn’t Realize He Was Gay

NBA Center Jason Collins Comes Out

Kevin McCaffery

One week ago, NBA player Jason Collins became the first athlete in a major U.S. sport to come out as gay. Former Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy came out in September, but it wasn’t until Collins’ announcement that he felt compelled to open up. He spoke to Bob Pompeani of CBS Pittsburgh about living a double life and waiting to come out during his first local interview in five years.
“It scared me to death that the story would get out, and I did live in fear,” said McClatchy when asked about keeping his sexuality secret. “It’s awful and it wears you down, and you’re always worried about something happening, or somebody saying something. It’s frightening really. You go to a dark place, and I had been there a few times. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”
McClatchy, who owned the team from 1996-2007, added he was worried rumors about his sexuality would hurt the chances of keeping the team in Pittsburgh. He worked to secure financing for PNC Park, which opened in 2001 and is widely regarded as one of the very best ballparks in Major League Baseball.
Now that Collins has come out and other players will inevitably join him at some point, the 50-year-old McClatchy wants to see sports create a culture of acceptance. He spoke more about it in part two of his video interview, which can be seen right here.
“I was around the culture — and granted, I’ve been gone from the game the last five years, so things were a little worse five years ago and worse ten years ago — but the culture could use a little bit of educating on how people deal with the topic or even talk about it,” he said while discussing whether sports were ready for more gay players. “You have to have dialogue and there was no dialogue from the commissioner’s office and down.”
“I think it should happen on the commissioner’s office on down,” he added. “Talking to their coaches, major league coaches, minor league, college coaches, high school coaches, that if there’s a gay kid, treat him like everyone else … Can I do both, be a gay person and play sports, and for most people, at least when I was growing up it was terrifying. And if it helps a kid, the teen suicide rate among gay kids is four times as high as regular kids, and I think they have enough pressure on them.”
When he came out to the New York Times in September, McClatchy said there was “no way I want to go into the rest of my existence and ever have to hide my personal life again.” He was sick of hiding his sexuality, a feeling that a number of professional athletes surely share today.
“We have men and women in the armed forces that are openly gay that are risking their lives every day overseas,” he said. “They get into the same showers as other guys and they’ve had no problems since don’t ask, don’t tell went through. We have firefighters, police officers, but there’s this arrogance in sports that we can’t do it, well, baloney.”
from CBS Sports
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Former Pirates Owner Says He’s Gay

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Jason Collins & Carolyn Moos

The woman who was once engaged to NBA star Jason Collins tells TMZ, she had NO CLUE he was gay at the time of their relationship … in fact, she only found out last weekend … and she was floored.
Carolyn Moos (who played a few seasons in the WNBA) dated Collins for seven years and was engaged to him until they broke up in 2009 … after Collins pulled the plug on their wedding.
Carolyn tells TMZ, she never once suspected he was gay, so the news is shocking. She says Collins eventually revealed everything last weekend — just days before his big announcement — and said that his homosexuality was the real reason he ended things with her.
At the time of their breakup, Carolyn says Jason gave a bunch of BS reasons for calling it quits … and she could never understand what went wrong, until now.
Carolyn — who’s back on the hunt for Mr. Right — tells us, “It’s very emotional for me as a woman to have invested 8 years in my dream to have a husband, soul mate, and best friend in him. So this is all hard to understand.”
She adds, “I care about [Jason] tremendously and only want the best for him. I want Jason to be happy for a lifetime and stay true to who he really is, inside and out.”
from TMZ
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NBA Center Jason Collins Comes Out

Jason Collins

I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.
I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, “I’m different.” If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I’m raising my hand.
My journey of self-discovery and self-acknowledgement began in my hometown of Los Angeles and has taken me through two state high school championships, the NCAA Final Four and the Elite Eight, and nine playoffs in 12 NBA seasons.
I’ve played for six pro teams and have appeared in two NBA Finals. Ever heard of a parlor game called Three Degrees of Jason Collins? If you’re in the league, and I haven’t been your teammate, I surely have been one of your teammates’ teammates. Or one of your teammates’ teammates’ teammates.
Now I’m a free agent, literally and figuratively. I’ve reached that enviable state in life in which I can do pretty much what I want. And what I want is to continue to play basketball. I still love the game, and I still have something to offer. My coaches and teammates recognize that. At the same time, I want to be genuine and authentic and truthful.
Why am I coming out now? Well, I started thinking about this in 2011 during the NBA player lockout. I’m a creature of routine. When the regular season ends I immediately dedicate myself to getting game ready for the opener of the next campaign in the fall. But the lockout wreaked havoc on my habits and forced me to confront who I really am and what I really want. With the season delayed, I trained and worked out. But I lacked the distraction that basketball had always provided.
The first relative I came out to was my aunt Teri, a superior court judge in San Francisco. Her reaction surprised me. “I’ve known you were gay for years,” she said. From that moment on I was comfortable in my own skin. In her presence I ignored my censor button for the first time. She gave me support. The relief I felt was a sweet release. Imagine you’re in the oven, baking. Some of us know and accept our sexuality right away and some need more time to cook. I should know — I baked for 33 years.
When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her. I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue.
I realized I needed to go public when Joe Kennedy, my old roommate at Stanford and now a Massachusetts congressman, told me he had just marched in Boston’s 2012 Gay Pride Parade. I’m seldom jealous of others, but hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy. I was proud of him for participating but angry that as a closeted gay man I couldn’t even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator. If I’d been questioned, I would have concocted half truths. What a shame to have to lie at a celebration of pride. I want to do the right thing and not hide anymore. I want to march for tolerance, acceptance and understanding. I want to take a stand and say, “Me, too.”
The recent Boston Marathon bombing reinforced the notion that I shouldn’t wait for the circumstances of my coming out to be perfect. Things can change in an instant, so why not live truthfully? When I told Joe a few weeks ago that I was gay, he was grateful that I trusted him. He asked me to join him in 2013. We’ll be marching on June 8.
No one wants to live in fear. I’ve always been scared of saying the wrong thing. I don’t sleep well. I never have. But each time I tell another person, I feel stronger and sleep a little more soundly. It takes an enormous amount of energy to guard such a big secret. I’ve endured years of misery and gone to enormous lengths to live a lie. I was certain that my world would fall apart if anyone knew. And yet when I acknowledged my sexuality I felt whole for the first time. I still had the same sense of humor, I still had the same mannerisms and my friends still had my back.
Believe it or not, my family has had bigger shocks. Strange as it seems today, my parents expected only one child in 1978. Me. When I came out (for the first time) the doctors congratulated my mother on her healthy, seven-pound, one-ounce baby boy. “Wait!” said a nurse. “Here comes another one!” The other one, who arrived eight minutes later and three ounces heavier, was Jarron. He’s followed me ever since, to Stanford and to the NBA, and as the ever-so-slightly older brother I’ve looked out for him.
I had a happy childhood in the suburbs of L.A. My parents instilled in us an appreciation of history, art and, most important, Motown. Jarron and I weren’t allowed to listen to rap until we were 12. After our birthday I dashed to Target and bought DJ Quik’s album Quik Is the Name. I memorized every line. It was around this time that I began noticing subtle differences between Jarron and me. Our twinness was no longer synchronized. I couldn’t identify with his attraction to girls.
(more…)

A Nevada state senator came out as gay this week during an emotional debate with his fellow lawmakers over the possible repeal of a state ban on same-sex marriage.
Nevada state Sen. Kelvin Atkinson, a Democrat representing North Las Vegas, told fellow senators Monday that he was gay during a legislative debate on the potential repeal.
“I’m black. I’m gay,” Atkinson said, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
“I know this is the first time many of you have heard me say that I am a black, gay male,” he added.
Atkinson implored his colleagues to colleagues to reconsider the idea that same-sex marriage threatened the entire institution.
“If this hurts your marriage, then your marriage was in trouble in the first place,” Atkinson said.
Following his impassioned speech, the Nevada senate voted to pass the measure, which would repeal the state’s ban on gay marriage in the state, 12 to 9.
Eleven Democrats and one Republican state senator voted to repeal.
The proposal now heads to the state Assembly, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 27 to 15.
If the Assembly passes the measure, the repeal would then head to the ballot in 2016, to let voters, who approved the state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage ban the first place in 2002, decide on the future of the controversial issue.
from The New York Daily News

E.J., Cookie & Magic Johnson

The 20-year-old son of basketball great Magic Johnson is surprised by the public interest in his being gay, something that he revealed to his supportive family several years ago.
Earvin Johnson III, known as E.J., says he feels like he’s coming out of the closet a second time and that he’s “reveling” in the experience – even though news of his sexual orientation broke publicly sooner than he had planned.
In an interview posted Tuesday on the YouTube.com talk show “Gwissues,” Johnson said that he didn’t feel violated after TMZ recently revealed that he’s gay.
“I always wanted to come into the spotlight,” he said. “I always had dreams and plans of doing my own thing and creating my own image, so it came a little sooner than I thought it would but this is still something I knew I would be going through and would have to experience.”
The younger Johnson is a junior at New York University studying event management and design with an interest in fashion, journalism and media.
He said the public reaction has ranged from support to criticism, including online postings involving “nasty things about me and what I’m doing.”
“It’s almost like they’re attacking me for being me and so to that I can only say, `Well, I can only be myself, so I don’t know really what you want me to do,’” he told “Gwissues” host and interviewer Howard Bragman, a publicist who recently began representing Johnson.
Johnson’s father, who co-owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, retired from the NBA in November 1991 after announcing he had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. His wife, Cookie, was pregnant with E.J. at the time. The couple also has an adopted daughter, Elisa, and Magic has an older son, Andre, from a previous relationship.
“I am very, very, very blessed to have the family that I do,” E.J. Johnson said. “My parents have always been super supportive. My sister and I have always been really close and she’s been really supportive as with my brother. When it was time to come out, I was, obviously, scared as most people are. After I got all the love and support from my family then I knew I could go out and conquer the world, I guess.”
Johnson said he first came out to his mother, who approached him when he was 13 or 14.
“I told her how I was feeling and she obviously told me that she had known and always would love me anyway. The same thing happened with my dad like a year or so later,” he said. “Everyone has to get used to it. No parent is prepared 100 percent and fully for something like that. We all had to work and move forward.”
He’d like to follow in his famous father’s footsteps in one arena: hosting his own talk show. Magic Johnson had a short-lived show on Fox in 1998 that was canceled because of low ratings.
E.J. Johnson said he’d like to be “the voice for young gay people who need someone to be on TV or wherever else to talk to them and talk about all kinds of issues that all of us face and not just homosexual issues but all kinds of issues.”
“I definitely want to set a really good example,” he said.
from The Associated Press
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Magic Johnson’s Son Goes Public With Boyfriend

Will & Senator Rob Portman

I came to Yale as a freshman in the fall of 2010 with two big uncertainties hanging over my head: whether my dad would get elected to the Senate in November, and whether I’d ever work up the courage to come out of the closet.
I made some good friends that first semester, took a couple of interesting classes and got involved in a few rewarding activities. My dad won his election. On the surface, things looked like they were going well. But the truth was, I wasn’t happy.
I’d make stuff up when my suitemates and I would talk about our personal lives. I remember going to a dance in the Trumbull dining hall with a girl in my class and feeling guilty about pretending to be somebody I wasn’t. One night, I snuck up to the stacks in Sterling Library and did some research on coming out. The thought of telling people I was gay was pretty terrifying, but I was beginning to realize that coming out, however difficult it seemed, was a lot better than the alternative: staying in, all alone.
I worried about how my friends back home would react when I told them I was gay. Would they stop hanging out with me? Would they tell me they were supportive, but then slowly distance themselves? And what about my friends at Yale, the “Gay Ivy”? Would they criticize me for not having come out earlier? Would they be able to understand my anxiety about all of this? I felt like I didn’t quite fit in with Yale or Cincinnati, or with gay or straight culture.
In February of freshman year, I decided to write a letter to my parents. I’d tried to come out to them in person over winter break but hadn’t been able to. So I found a cubicle in Bass Library one day and went to work. Once I had something I was satisfied with, I overnighted it to my parents and awaited a response.
They called as soon as they got the letter. They were surprised to learn I was gay, and full of questions, but absolutely rock-solid supportive. That was the beginning of the end of feeling ashamed about who I was.
I still had a ways to go, though. By the end of freshman year, I’d only come out to my parents, my brother and sister, and two friends. One day that summer, my best friend from high school and I were hanging out.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I finally said. “I’m gay.” He paused for a second, looked down at the ground, looked back up, and said, “Me too.”
I was surprised. At first it was funny, and we made jokes about our lack of gaydar. Then it was kind of sad to realize that we’d been going through the same thing all along but hadn’t felt safe enough to confide in each other. But then, it was pretty cool — we probably understood each other’s situation at that moment better than anybody else could.
In the weeks that followed, I got serious about coming out. I made a list of my family and friends and went through the names, checking them off one by one as I systematically filled people in on who I really was. A phone call here, a Skype call there, a couple of meals at Skyline Chili, my favorite Cincinnati restaurant. I was fortunate that virtually everyone, both from Yale and from home, was supportive and encouraging, calming my fears about how they’d react to my news. If anything, coming out seemed to strengthen my friendships and family relationships.
I started talking to my dad more about being gay. Through the process of my coming out, we’d had a tacit understanding that he was my dad first and my senator a distant second. Eventually, though, we began talking about the policy issues surrounding marriage for same-sex couples.
The following summer, the summer of 2012, my dad was under consideration to be Gov. Romney’s running mate. The rest of my family and I had given him the go-ahead to enter the vetting process. My dad told the Romney campaign that I was gay, that he and my mom were supportive and proud of their son, and that we’d be open about it on the campaign trail.
When he ultimately wasn’t chosen for the ticket, I was pretty relieved to have avoided the spotlight of a presidential campaign. Some people have criticized my dad for waiting for two years after I came out to him before he endorsed marriage for gay couples. Part of the reason for that is that it took time for him to think through the issue more deeply after the impetus of my coming out. But another factor was my reluctance to make my personal life public.
We had decided that my dad would talk about having a gay son if he were to change his position on marriage equality. It would be the only honest way to explain his change of heart. Besides, the fact that I was gay would probably become public anyway. I had encouraged my dad all along to change his position, but it gave me pause to think that the one thing that nobody had known about me for so many years would suddenly become the one thing that everybody knew about me.
It has been strange to have my personal life in the headlines. I could certainly do without having my sexual orientation announced on the evening news, or commentators weighing in to tell me things like living my life honestly and fully is “harmful to [me] and society as a whole.” But in many ways it’s been a privilege to come out so publicly. Now, my friends at Yale and the folks in my dad’s political orbit in Ohio are all on the same page. They know two things about me that I’m very proud of, not just one or the other: that I’m gay, and that I’m Rob and Jane Portman’s son.
I’m grateful to be able to continue to integrate my two worlds, the yin and yang of Yale and Ohio and the different values and experiences they represent in my life. When you find yourself between two worlds — for example, if you’re navigating the transition between a straight culture and a gay identity — it’s possible to feel isolated and alone, like you don’t fit in with either group that makes up a part of who you are.
But instead of feeling like you don’t belong anywhere, or like you have to reject one group in order to join another, you can build a bridge between your two worlds, and work to facilitate greater understanding between them.
I support marriage for same-sex couples because I believe that everybody should be treated the same way and have the same shot at happiness. Over the course of our country’s history the full rights of citizenship have gradually been extended to a broader and broader group of people, something that’s made our society stronger, not weaker. Gay rights may be the civil rights cause of the moment, but the movement fits into a larger historical narrative.
I’m proud of my dad, not necessarily because of where he is now on marriage equality (although I’m pretty psyched about that), but because he’s been thoughtful and open-minded in how he’s approached the issue, and because he’s shown that he’s willing to take a political risk in order to take a principled stand. He was a good man before he changed his position, and he’s a good man now, just as there are good people on either side of this issue today.
We’re all the products of our backgrounds and environments, and the issue of marriage for same-sex couples is a complicated nexus of love, identity, politics, ideology and religious beliefs. We should think twice before using terms like “bigoted” to describe the position of those opposed to same-sex marriage or “immoral” to describe the position of those in favor, and always strive to cultivate humility in ourselves as we listen to others’ perspectives and share our own.
I hope that my dad’s announcement and our family’s story will have a positive impact on anyone who is closeted and afraid, and questioning whether there’s something wrong with them. I’ve been there. If you’re there now, please know that things really do get better, and they will for you too.
from The Yale Daily News
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Senator Rob Portman Changes His Views On Gay Marriage

from FCKH8

Will & Senator Rob Portman

You probably recognize Sen. Rob Portman from his tireless campaigning for Mitt Romney in 2012. He was even on the short list to be Romney’s running mate.
He’s been a leading Republican voice on economic issues for four decades.
Now, the prominent Ohio conservative will be known for something else: reversing his hardline position against gay marriage.
He invited CNN to his Senate office to reveal the news.
“I’m announcing today a change of heart on an issue that a lot of people feel strongly about that has to do with gay couples’ opportunity to marry,” Portman told CNN.
It has to do with another revelation, one deeply personal. His 21-year-old son, Will, is gay.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that for me, personally, I think this is something that we should allow people to do, to get married, and to have the joy and stability of marriage that I’ve had for over 26 years. That I want all of my children to have, including our son, who is gay,” said Portman.
Will Portman told his father and mother he is gay two years ago, when he was a freshman at Yale University.
“My son came to Jane, my wife, and I, told us that he was gay, and that it was not a choice, and that it’s just part of who he is, and that’s who he’d been that way for as long as he could remember,” said Portman.
What was the Republican senator’s reaction?
“Love. Support,” responded Portman.
And complete surprise. He told CNN that he never suspected that his son was gay.
Portman says his son, now a junior in college, helped him work through his decision to announce his change in position on gay marriage and blessed the idea of publicly announcing Will Portman’s sexuality.
“I think he’s happy and, you know, proud that we’ve come to this point, but he let it be my decision just as you know, it’s going to be his decision as to the role he plays going forward in this whole issue,” said Portman.
Until now, this was a secret to most people in politics, but not everyone.
Last year, when Romney was vetting Portman to be his running mate, the Ohio Republican informed both Romney and his top campaign advisers that he has a gay son.
“I told Mitt Romney everything,” said Portman with a laugh. “That process is, intrusive would be one way to put it. But, no, yeah, I told him everything.”
Portman, who was ultimately passed over as the GOP vice-presidential candidate in favor of Rep. Paul Ryan, said the fact that his son is gay was not the deal breaker for Romney. How does he know?
“Well, because they told me,” said Portman.
Portman told CNN he sought counsel from a Republican who did serve as vice president: Dick Cheney, the highest-ranking Republican with an openly gay child, his daughter Mary.
“I spoke to him personally; I actually met with him,” said Portman.
He said Cheney’s advice was simple: “‘Follow your heart.’”
“He was a good person to talk to because he also was surprised by the news, in that case, you know, his wonderful daughter, who he loves very much. And it forced him to re-think the issue too, and over time, he changed his view on it,” said Portman.
“I followed his advice. You know, I followed my heart,” he said.
Though he is a staunch conservative, Portman was never outspoken against gay marriage. But he consistently voted against it.
While in Congress, he supported a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and voted for a bill prohibiting gay couples in Washington from adopting.
In 2011, 100 University of Michigan law school graduates walked out of Portman’s commencement address to protest his position on gay rights after circulating a petition trying to get him removed as the event’s speaker.
“The decision to host a graduation speaker who is openly hostile to LGBT rights is deeply unfair to the LGBT students who will be in the audience this year celebrating their graduation,” read the petition.
Portman admitted that when the protest occurred, he already knew his own son was gay.
“It was a little odd. Look, and to be honest with you, it didn’t affect that decision-making much, because it was, I didn’t think it was appropriate,” Portman said. “But look, they had their freedom of speech rights to be able to do what they wanted to do.”
“But you know, what happened to me is really personal. I mean, I hadn’t thought a lot about this issue. Again, my focus has been on other issues over my public policy career,” said Portman.
Asked about why he is announcing this change of heart, since his son revealed it to him two years ago, Portman cited two reasons. He just recently became comfortable with his decision to shift his position on gay marriage, and also he said he knew the Supreme Court is considering a pair of gay marriage cases, and reporters would likely ask him for his position.
“I thought it was the right time to let folks know where I stand so there’s no confusion, so I would be clear about it,” said Portman.
What would Portman say to gay constituents who may be glad he’s changing his position on gay marriage, but also wondering why it took having a gay son to come around to supporting their rights?
“Well, I would say that, you know, I’ve had a change of heart based on a personal experience. That’s certainly true,” he responded with a shoulder shrug.
But he also repeated a reality. His policy focus has been almost exclusively on economic issues.
“Now it’s different, you know. I hadn’t expected to be in this position. But I do think, you know, having spent a lot of time thinking about it and working through this issue personally that, you know, this is where I am, for reasons that are consistent with my political philosophy, including family values, including being a conservative who believes the family is a building block of society, so I’m comfortable there now.”
To be sure, Portman was anything but comfortable discussing something as private and personal as his son’s sexuality, even noting how foreign it felt for someone with his Midwestern upbringing and sensibilities to talk publicly about such issues.
At times, the press-savvy politician even seemed to tremble a bit. But it was also clear he was willing to endure the discussion in order to publicly tell his son that he is proud.
“He wanted to tell us that there’s something about him that we didn’t know,” Portman said, reflecting on the day two years ago his son Will first told his parents he was gay.
Portman quickly added that it “of course hasn’t changed our view of him at all.”
from CNN

Clive Davis

Katie Couric has the exclusive interview, which airs on her talk show Katie on Feb. 19, during which Sony Music’s chief creative officer, and the man who discovered or signed such multi-platinum acts as Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys, Barry Manilow, Santana and dozens more, reveals that he is in fact bisexual.
Speaking of his “failed marriage” which came apart in the mid ’80s, Davis says, “I opened myself up to the possibility that I could have a relationship with a man as well as the two that I had with a woman.” He added: “I’m still attracted to women. … You don’t have to be only one thing or another. For me, it’s the person.”
Preview clips from the show stop short of revealing with whom Davis is currently involved, but the 80-year-old father of four (his three sons, Fred, Doug and Mitch, all work in the music business) emphasizes that he is “in a monogamous relationship.”
As for why Davis chose to divulge such intimate details now, the industry veteran has a book to sell, for one. The Soundtrack of My Life, being released by Simon & Schuster also on Feb. 19, tells the life story of the Brooklyn-bred record man and consummate tastemaker who played a key role in curating popular music for well over five decades.
from The Hollywood Reporter

Robbie Rogers

U.S. National Soccer player Robbie Rogers simultaneously announced that he is gay and is walking away from soccer. The 25-year-old wrote a post on his website which he tweeted out Friday.
“For the past 25 (years) I have been afraid, afraid to show whom I really was because of fear. Fear that judgment and rejection would hold me back from my dreams and aspirations,” Rogers wrote. “Fear that my loved ones would be farthest from me if they knew my secret. Fear that my secret would get in the way of my dreams.”
Rogers has made 18 appearances for the U.S. National Team. He is contracted to Leeds United, of the power Championship League in England, but has been loaned out to Stevenage, a League One side. Prior to his move across the Atlantic, Rogers played for the Columbus Crew of the MLS.
“Now is my time to step away,” he wrote. “It’s time to discover myself away from football.”
There has never been an openly gay athlete actively playing a major team sport in the United States or from the United States. The fact that Rogers spoke of the secrets he kept in order to remain undiscovered only highlights the lack of acceptance of homosexuality in popular sports culture. Though he did not say whether his decision to leave the game was because he did not want to be openly gay and actively playing, it speaks volumes that the only athletes to come out have also been retired.
Hudson Taylor, the founder and executive director of Athlete Ally, an organization designed to support athletes regardless of their sexual orientation, made a statement responding Rogers’ decision to come out and leave the game.
“I applaud Rogers’ courage and honesty in what continues to be a struggle for gay and lesbian athletes around the world,” Taylor said. “With yet another athlete coming out and feeling the need to retire, it is time that we, as an athletic community, realize the responsibility we have in making athletes feel comfortable and confident being themselves.”
Rogers did not explicitly say he was retiring from the game, only that he was stepping away from it.
“Football was my escape, my purpose, my identity. Football hid my secret, gave me more joy than I could have ever imagined,” Rogers wrote. “I will never forget the friends I have made (along) the way and the friends that supported me once they knew my secret.”
from The New York Daily News

NEW JERSEY – When Jacob Rudolph gave an acceptance speech at an assembly this month for winning the class award for best actor, the New Jersey high school senior did something that many of the more than 300 students in the audience did not expect: He came out.
“Most of you see me every day. You see me acting the part of ‘straight’ Jacob, when I am in fact LGBT,” the courageous teen said. “Unlike millions of other LGBT teens who have had to act every day to avoid verbal harassment and physical violence, I’m not going to do it anymore.”
Rudolph continued: “It’s time to end the hate in our society and accept the people for who they are regardless of their sex, race, orientation, or whatever else may be holding back love and friendship. So take me, leave me or move me out of the way. Because I am what I am, and that’s how I’m going to act from now on.”
The crowd’s reaction? A loud, standing ovation—exactly what Rudolph deserved for his incredible speech.
Rudolph’s father posted the video to YouTube with the following message at the end that read in part:
The reaction of the students is testimony to the progress we’ve made in our society to respect everyone.
But we still have a long way to go. Jacob made his statement where he made it and when he made it to let other LGBT teens know they’re not alone and that sometime not too far, we hope, down the road, no kid will ever have to act as someone they’re not to avoid being bulled, harassed, or assaulted.
from Truth Dig

Victor Garber & Rainer Andreesen

While Jodie Foster made her sexual orientation a public spectacle at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills Jan. 13, Titanic actor Victor Garber quietly confirmed that he’s gay in an interview with Greg in Hollywood blogger Greg Hernandez.
Garber — best known for his roles in the movies Argo, Legally Blonde, Milk, The First Wives Club and Sleepless in Seattle — addressed his homosexuality during the TV Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif. in early January.
Hernandez asked Garber about a Wikipedia entry that claimed he lives in New York City with artist and model Rainer Andreesen. “I don’t really talk about it but everybody knows,” the 63-year-old actor said of his relationship with Andreesen, a fellow Canadian. “He’s going to be out here with me for the SAG Awards.”
Garber — who has been nominated for six Emmy Awards since entering show business — first spoke about his longtime love in an April 2012 interview with Canada’s Forever Young.
“My companion Rainer Andreesen and I have been together almost 13 years in Greenwich Village,” he said. “We both love New York.”
In addition to his film career, Garber has also appeared on the small screen in Alias, 30 Rock, Frasier, Ugly Betty, Web Therapy, The Big C, Damages, Deception, Eli Stone, Nurse Jackie and Glee.
from US Magazine

Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster came out without really coming out, and suggested she was retiring from acting without exactly saying so, in a long, breathless and rambling speech at Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards.
Foster took the stage as this year’s winner of the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, which had been announced previously. But her acceptance speech was anything but predictable as the veteran actress seized control of what is every year a noisy, boozy ballroom; the crowd of A-listers quickly quieted down as it became apparent that she had something serious and important to say.
The 50-year-old Oscar-winner for “The Silence of the Lambs” and “The Accused,” who’s been protective of her private life and reluctant to discuss her sexual orientation, was coy at first, suggesting she had a big announcement that would make her publicist nervous (the broadcast audio dropped out at this point, but for no apparent reason; nothing was said off-color). Then she stated: “I’m just going to put it out there, loud and proud … I am, uh, single,” pausing for dramatic effect before that last word. “I hope you’re not disappointed that there won’t be a big coming-out speech tonight. I already did my coming-out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age.”
Foster joked that celebrities are now expected to reveal they’re gay “with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show. And you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No. I’m sorry. That’s just not me. It never was and it never will be. But please don’t cry, because my reality show would be so boring.”
She added defiantly: “If you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you, too, might value privacy above all else.”
Foster thanked Cydney Bernard, a production manager whom she identified as “my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life,” her former partner of 20 years – a relationship she never hid and from which she has two sons.
She also made it sound as if she planned to retire from acting once and for all, something she’d toyed with previously.
“This feels like the end of one era and the beginning of something else. Scary and exciting, and now what?” Foster said. “I may never be up on this stage again, on any stage, for that matter.”
But backstage afterward, she clarified for reporters: “I could never stop acting. You’d have to drag me behind a team of horses. I’d like to be directing tomorrow. I’m more into it than I have ever been.”
As for why she chose this place and time to discuss her private life, Foster explained backstage: “The speech kind of speaks for itself. … It’s a big moment. I wanted to say what’s most in my heart.”
Her revelation, vague as it was, nonetheless set Twitter on fire with reactions. Some called her words moving and brave while others suggested that she should have done more to be a role model for lesbians.
Ricky Martin, who came out himself in 2010, tweeted: “Jody Foster On your terms. Its your time! Not before nor after. Its when it feels right.”
And Amy Poehler, who co-hosted the Golden Globes with longtime friend and fellow comedian Tina Fey, cracked as she was signing off for the night: “We’re going home with Jodie Foster!”
from The Associated Press

Ricky Martin

UNITED NATIONS – Latin superstar Ricky Martin is telling a U.N. conference on homophobia that he wishes he could come out again so he could tell people struggling with their identities that “it’s just beautiful – you find love.”
Martin said Tuesday that “for many years, I lived in fear … because I was hating myself because I grew up listening to a very crooked concept: `You’re gay. You belong in hell.’”
Martin, who is currently starring on Broadway in “Evita,” said it was amazing to be at the United Nations surrounded by people “fighting for one cause – equality and love and social justice.”
He praised U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who got a standing ovation after telling the conference that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people – the LGBTs – “are entitled to the same rights as everyone else.”
“They, too, are born free and equal,” Ban said. “I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them in their struggle for human rights.”
The secretary-general said he is “pained” that more than 76 countries still criminalize homosexuality.
“I am here to again denounce violence and demand action for true equality,” he said.
While the past decade has seen far-reaching reforms in Europe, the Americas and a number of African and Asian countries, Ban said, in a number of countries – including Ukraine – draft laws have been proposed that would criminalize public discussion of homosexuality.
South African singing star Yvonne Chaka Chaka, a human rights activist and goodwill ambassador for the U.N. children’s fund who is married and has four children, said “I think straight people should respect other people because, for me, I don’t think there’s anything crooked about LGBT.”
Their only “crime,” she said, “is because they love the same gender.”
Chaka said her husband is a prince who is allowed to have three or four wives “but I would not let him.”
I will never allow him to have a second wife, and he knows that. That is why he chose me,” she said. “If he wants to, goodbye.”
from The Associated Press