Inching out of the closet

It's a relatively new phenomenon, the non-coming out come-out. Gay public figures attend events with same-sex partners, or get spotted shopping with them at Ikea. They never claim to be straight or go on arranged photo-op dates with opposite-sex celebrities, and the stars as well as their fans may even sincerely consider them to be out, or at least…not in.

Take actor Neil Patrick Harris, who publicly came out a year and a half ago in the pages of People magazine. Many gay fans considered him to be "out" even before he acknowledged it to the press, treating reports he'd been seen in public with his male partner as a tacit coming out announcement.

Before Harris told People that he was "proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest," Towleroad.com blogged that Harris' publicist had issued a statement denying he was "of that persuasion." Reaction among readers was amused surprise. "Has his publicist met Neil Patrick Harris?" wrote one.

"Yo, Doogie, you're not fooling anyone! Especially considering every queer in New York has seen you out and about," commented another.

Other comments echoed the sentiment. "I thought NPH being gay was a completely ’open secret‘ at this point," said one. And another: "I was at a party with him, and he openly admitted to me that he was gay! He's in a long-term committed relationship."

Neil Patrick Harris & David Burtka

Harris was yet another public figure who was "out in the community, but not in the press." In other words, gay fans knew, along with varying numbers of other people, but it hadn't been reported in the media, and mainstream America was perfectly free to ignore it if they wished. In fact, most of mainstream America isn't ignoring the existence of queer celebrities; thanks to close-mouthed celebrities and a complicit media, they really don't know.

That system works because these days many of the queer and famous don't come out – they inch out. And it's not hard to figure out why. They get to socialize in the gay community, be out to their immediate friends and family, and live with their same-sex partners without having to go through the media circus of an official come-out. But here's a question: What's in it for us?

Other than any thrill it might give us to get the joke when Anderson Cooper laughs that fellow CNN anchor Erica Hill's husband doesn't have anything to worry about from him, or when Jodie Foster thanks her "beautiful Cydney" at a Hollywood event, not much. That's because it's not inside jokes and white-lipped references to privacy that advance GLBT equality and civil rights; it's visibility.

And that doesn't mean visibility to each other, but mainstream visibility. There is nothing more strongly correlated with increased support of gay rights among straight people, from marriage to adoption to opposing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, than one simple thing: knowing someone who is gay.

Anderson Cooper (l), Jodie Foster & Cydney Bernard (r)

The bottom line is that coming out as gay – actually saying the words clearly, and for the record – is the single most powerful tool we have to achieve equality. "Inching out" might make gay celebrities' lives easier, and they have every right to do it if they want to. But as a community, we also have the right to examine the impact of that choice on us.

And it does have one. It perpetuates the one thing that has done more harm to gay rights than any other institution: the closet. Because even if a public figure is "out in the community," until they're also "out in the press" – until their coming out statement is on the pages of People magazine – mainstream America will continue on, blissfully unaware that their favorite actor, a powerful politician, or a respected business leader is queer.

This positive impact on gay social equality is exactly the reason given by two stars, one at the beginning of his career, the other arguably the most famous gay actor in the world, for making the decision to choose visibility.

Faced with questions about his own sexual orientation after he took the role of gay teen Marco Del Rossi on Degrassi: The Next Generation, actor Adamo Ruggiero started with a classic inch-out non-answer: “Let the gay kids think I'm gay and let the straight girls think I'm straight.” And it worked, too; in response to a recent article about Ruggiero's coming out, one of those "gay kids" commented, "Wow, was he ever in the closet in the first place?"

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