Rumors

The excellent blog Gay Persons of Color cites a quote from the heterosexual Matthew Morrison, the star of the very gay hit TV series Glee.

"I grew up singing and dancing, so people have been calling me gay since fifth grade. I've heard everything you could possibly hear about it. But I do love gay people, so I'm not going to act like I was insulted or angry about it."

Compare this reaction to Ron Livingston, the actor who played the lover who dumped Carrie Bradshaw on a post-it note in the also quite gay Sex and the City.  He is now suing wikipedia for libel because someone has hacked the site and reported that Livingston is gay.  For the record, Ron Livingston is married to the Rachel Getting Married actress, the wonderful Rosemary DeWitt.  What's more than a little sad is the actual definition of libel, which means, "defamation by written or printed words, pictures, or in any form other than by spoken words or gestures." A question for you Ron.  Instead of going to court to claim you have been defamed, why not just  explain to the public that we need to get over feeling like the "gay" label is a vicious attack?

Let's reverse this for a second.  Let's assume that someone wrote that Ellen was straight.  Let's further assume that Ellen takes this person to court to sue for "defamation of character."  Pretty absurd, isn't it?

Boy, do we have a long way to go when being labeled gay is still considered defaming character.