Pop! Quiz: When is a gold-medal-winning gay diver not a gay diver?

That was a tough question to answer, Brian, because the story needn't be about the person's gayness. The gayness should be organically part of the story. If coverage of Michael Phelps includes mentions of his mother and his sisters (and apparently some swimmer he was sucking face with in an Olympic Village bar in an attempt to win Gold #9 -- I forget whether the swimmer's name was Stephanie or Ryan or Jason), then coverage of Matthew Mitcham should include mentions of his family as well -- that means his mother Vivienne and his partner Lachlan. (I haven't heard any mention of Matthew's dad or any siblings, so I don't know whether they might be significant in Matthew's story.)

So I could have answered the pop quiz two ways: always, or only when it's significant. But it should always be significant. At some point, it will stop being historic, but it will always be significant.

...that Michael Phelps was supposedly sucking face with the Aussie chick Stephanie Rice, who had three Golds of her own.  Apparently the breeders are getting into eugenics and looking to produce a master race...

As for Fox, it depends on which of their sites you hit.  Most of the sites owned by News Corp are either mentioning the gay or playing the video clip entitled "Mitcham celebrates with his partner".  I just went to www.news.com.au and it was still there.

Plus there's lot of references to him being gay in the Australian papers' sites.  The Sydney Morning Herald (which broke the story on him in the first place) entitled their's "Out-and-out champion...".

So Down Under I don't think there's much concealment going on.

"If you have the time and the patience for exceedingly small-minded commentary, read the user comments below the story to get an idea of what happened"

Actually, flicking through the latest few hundred (couldn't work out how to view further than that) they seem hugely positive. There's a few crazies ("gays brought us ayds [sic]"), a few people who play the "we don't hear about openly heterosexual competitors) and a few questioning the accuracy of describing him as the first openly gay Australian competitor, but the vast majority of those complaining about the use of the term "openly homosexual" are complaining that Fox did it in a derogatory way (as in, "He won despite a crippling case of gayness! The nancies can do well in sports after all!") that wasn't in any way organic to the article and was just turfed in to spin the copy. On top of that, there's dozens congratulating him on his success and on being open and out while competing. Just seems like you're giving the commentators short shrift is all...

The 'lesbian' was invented in 1992 by Sir Arthur Lesbian.

Yeah, he is getting quite a bit of coverage here, and most of it mentions his partner Lachlan in a very refreshingly off-hand way (particularly in the Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney's biggest paper, which is quite left wing). Though I did note the Channel 7 commentator saying right before his last dive that his mother, brothers, and 'countrymen' were all behind him, with no mention of his partner. I thought that was a bit off. Still, 7 had crap coverage all together.

Just thought I'd add how one of my fairly Christian and conservative acquaintances started happily tearing up when he won gold, and was supporting him all the way. I was touched. Sport is an interesting unifyer.