"Out" Power 50 Glass Closet Tour makes examples of Anderson Cooper, Matt Drudge and Barry Diller

Two years ago Out magazine got additional attention for its Power 50 list (which names the most influential gay men and women in America) by outing a handfull of celebrities in order to discuss "The Glass Closet", celebrities who aren't out to the public but whose sexual orientation is seen as an open secret that the media mostly ignores. This year's Power 50 revisits the issue by including three men who aren't openly gay — Anderson Cooper, Matt Drudge and Barry Diller — on the list.

Out editor-in-chief Aaron Hicklin discussed the ethics of Out's outings in the UK paper The Guardian and defended the article by noting that four of the celebrities mentioned in the original "Glass Closet" article (Jodie Foster, David Hyde Pierce, Clay Aiken and Wanda Sykes) have publicly come out since then, helping push the closet towards obsolescence.

Out's 2007 "Glass Closet" issue

But is there a difference between the kind of outing that gossip mongers like Perez Hilton (who dropped from 16th to 43rd on this year's Power 50) practice and the way Out peers into the glass closet?

I find Drudge to be an interesting addition to the Power 50 list because, unlike other residents of the Glass Closet, Drudge has denied that he's gay. Repeatedly. Drudge has been outed by the likes of Michelanelo Signorile, Alec Baldwin and former conservative media attack dog David Brock (who hilariously turned out to have kept the sexually-explicit fax Drudge sent him in case anyone tried to challenge his story). The other residents of the Glass Closet stay closeted by avoiding the topic, often with the help of reporters who won't ask the uncomfortable questions.

The utterly adorkable David Brock with Jon Stewart

Drudge is also notable as someone who uses his influence to help anti-gay forces to obtain and retain power. That certainly brings to mind the original purpose of outing, which focused on closeted gays who were hurting LGBT people in their work.

So does that make it more acceptable for Out to try forcing celebrities out of the Glass Closet than when someone like Perez Hilton declares a celebrity gay and starts drawing penises on their faces in photos? At the least, Out is trying to justify itself by framing it within the politics of being openly gay, but is that just an excuse to dish about who's got secrets? Let us know what you think in the poll below and in the comments!