I Didn't Say It ... Happy Pride!

Sting, musician, on what the gay community has done for straight men:

“Thanks to the gay community, we [straight] men can actually follow our feelings and demonstrate our affection for each other without being afraid. The generation before us, our fathers, they would shake hands and that would be it. There would be no hugging or affection.”

Straight men could learn a lo from gay men about being open and loving with one another.

photo

Caleb Shomo, frontman for the rock band Beartooth, coming out as gay:

"There's been a lot of speculation surrounding my personal life as of late, and I feel compelled to set the record straight before it affects those I love any further … I am a proudly gay man. This is something I've been unpacking and reckoning with in my life for quite some time now. It's been difficult to navigate the feelings surrounding the subject and figure out what to do with this fact. I spent a decade burying feelings with alcohol, and honestly, when I decided to put it down and focus on exploring why I felt this way for so long, it's been a direct path to me reconciling with my sexuality in hopes that it will eventually lead me to experiencing self-love. One thing I decided before I wrote a single note or lyric of the upcoming album is that whatever happens, I will express myself wholeheartedly and fully. I encourage anyone who's struggling with who they are to give yourself grace. Do the hard work instead of burying it down as deep as you physically can thinking it will change like I did. Holding these things in only hurt you and those around you. Love you all, and hopefully this is a step in the right direction to loving myself one day.”

Welcome out, Caleb! And please accept as our gift to you, the Official Coming Out Toaster Oven™ and your own copy of The Gay Agenda.

No matter how long you took to get here, you’re welcome; you’re among family.

photo

Fleur Shomo, Caleb’s wife of 14 years, opened up her husband’s coming out:

“I will always want to love, protect and support Caleb. I have cared more about his well-being over the years than anything else in the world. To see the confusion and pain he went through and the highs and lows and wanting to help but now knowing how. You never want anything more for your person than for them to just be ok. I am the only person that is having to deal with the duality of this situation, to support him whilst losing everything has been incredibly hard to figure out. You can love and support your person through the hardest time in their life, whilst also be completely demolished and lose yourself at the same time... Our nearly 14 years of marriage was wonderful and full of so much fun, adventure & love. Nobody will know anything about our marriage like we do. And no one can ever truly know what depths of love exist between two people unless they are those people. I already miss it & my husband more than anything. Our story was a good one. And now it is done.”

My heart breaks for Fleur but also weeps for her strength and ability to still love her husband, even as this chapter of his life, and their lives, comes to a close.

photo

Willie Nelson, country singer, on his life and gay people:

“I’ve known straight and gay people all my life. I can’t tell the difference. People are people where I came from.”

It’s just that simple.

photo

Meryl Streep, actor, on her The Devil Wears Prada co-star Stanley Tucci during his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony:

"You can't even call Stanley a national treasure anymore because I've just been around the world, and truly, the affection hurled at him globally, he's just marinating in it. And it's impossible not to love Stanley Tucci. Urbane, sly, funny, bitchy, and generous and curious and so elegant. Stanley has an elegance to his heterosexuality. His undeniable heterosexuality, which is formidable. Not that heterosexuality is better than any other kind of sexuality. It's just that elegance—real, unforced, natural, unstyled elegance—is sometimes harder for straight men. His soulfulness is evident in the most elevated characters and also in the lowdown characters. It's a thing he can't lose, no matter if it's a priest or a prosecutor or a pervert or Puck or Paul Child, he always finds something true and surprising in every man that he plays. He transforms character acting into leading man material."

I know Stanley Tucci is a heterosexual male, but because he’s, as Meryl says, ‘sly, funny, bitchy’ he fits into a gay man’s idea of a certain kind of man … well, he’s my idea of a fabulous gay man … and also a Husband-In-My-Head.

And Carlos is fine with that!

photo