Big Gay Closet

The past week was almost all about the Cinco de Gayo announcement which turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax (“Who?”  echoed the world over, from gay blog to gay blog) but still interesting and important as one of America’s country music’s stars came crooning out of the closet with a new album and a new book.

Of course, we’d known last week since TMZ published her identity well ahead of the official announcement.

Feel like reliving it?

In chronological order, the Cinco de Gayo posts from the past week:

Newly Out Chely Wright:  ”I had a gun in my mouth” (This was the interview that The Advocate published too early and had to take back down. They published it again on the 5th)

Queerty asks: Did Chely Wright & Howard Bragman have a responsibility to closeted celebs?

Newsy.com: Will Chely Wright’s fans listen to a lesbian?

On the 5th, which was meant to be the official Chely Wright outing, New Zealand Olympian Blake Skjellerup came out in the Australian gay magazine DNA’s special sports issue. He also tweeted a very cute tweet.

We had a new contributor share a story of her very first girl-crush. When’s the first time you fell in love with someone of the same sex as you? Tell us!

Another new contributor told us the story of going to pride with her three gay aunts, and how she caught the attention of every woman in the room.

Oh and the incredible Jane Lynch — of The L Word and, more recently, Glee fame — spoke about her early affair with a teacher and about coming out.

Finally we (along with the rest of the queer blogosphere) gave a virtual standing ovation to Rachel Maddow who made it clear on her show why it is newsworthy when the vehemently anti-gays turn out to be gay, as she addressed the George Rekers/rentboy scandal.

More to come this week. I have a fantastic kinda-coming-out-story ready for tomorrow and hoping a few more will land in my inbox soon!

Have a Happy Mothers’ Day, regardless of how happy your mother is. Sometimes for us gay folks, family isn’t all that.

Jacq

There are times I begin to suspect that TRMS is wearing a bit thin for me. In fairness, I’m not American, so sometimes the content isn’t relevant to me.

But then Rachel Maddow does this. She succinctly explains why it is such a big deal that George Rekers got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. And she does it well.

You may not have heard much of George Rekers before the past couple of weeks, but he was involved with someone you’ve probably heard of: James Dobson (not in that way). The two were on the founding board of the now infamous Family Research Council.

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I had a somewhat different take on things earlier when I wrote “Why we love a good fall from grace (and why that’s ok)” on the Irish lesbian website Gaelick. It was inspired, in part, by the Iris Robinson scandal that was in the news at the time. She wasn’t gay, just cheating on her husband with a teenager, and she was definitely anti-gay.