Rosie's Gay Gospel

One afternoon a few weeks ago I received several e-mails stating that Rosie O'Donnell had called me a "moron" and had claimed that I was among the reasons that she'd not come out of the closet earlier. Crazy, I thought. Sounds like some nutty National Enquirer item. n I mean, the moron part, okay?Rosie certainly could have said that, and my criticisms of her may have inspired it, even warranted it. But little me, a mere moron of a columnist, is what was standing between big and powerful Rosie and the closet door all this time? Surely even Rosie, susceptible to all the self-delusions that most megacelebrities are susceptible to, would not say something so utterly ridiculous and think that anyone would actually believe it.

But hey, it was for real, as Rosie said that and more in an interview she did with columnist Paula Martinac on PlanetOut.com:

Q. What do you make of gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile's assertion that it was your desire to silence your gay critics that made you come out?

A. He is a moron. His idea of gay America consists of only those he deems worthy enough. I do not enjoy him, his point of view or his rhetoric. (He isn't even funny.) One reason I did not come out sooner, I didn't want anyone to associate me with Signorile in any way. Same goes for Musto.

Musto had been out front in offering fair criticism of Rosie's subterfuge for years, and he's gotten her back up several times. What Martinac was referring to in her question was a column I'd written here just last month in which I'd discussed the careful cross-promotional marketing of Rosie's coming out in the media. I noted what a great thing Rosie's coming out would be for the issue of gay adoption, but the part I'm sure Rosie remembers most was when I noted her less than honest past, in which she endlessly carried on to her Middle America tv audience about her supposed crush on Tom Cruise while never saying a word about famous women she might have crushes on. We heard ad nauseam about her kids, but nothing about her co-parent and partner.

That wouldn't be a big deal now if not for the fact that Rosie, amidst the terrific things she's doing in bringing attention to the issue of gay parenting, is still distorting that past?and lashing out at anyone who has pointed to her obfuscations.

Everyone, in coming out, is entitled to having lied. We've all been there, and nobody?in the gay community at least?ever holds it against you. You explain it, people understand and you then move on. But in the first few weeks after her much-heralded coming out, Rosie instead attempted to put forth the rather bizarre notion that she didn't ever really hide her sexual orientation and that her panting for Tom Cruise was never meant to convey that she actually liked him sexually. (She only meant she wanted him to mow her lawn, she says.)

Beyond that, amid her good deeds, Rosie's also let out some rather homophobic whoppers of late?e.g., saying she wouldn't want her children to be gay?the kinds of things that betray she's got some issues to deal with. And the gay public and much of the gay media have simply given a pass on these statements. There's something scary, though sadly understandable, that happens to the gay public?starved for validation and visibility?when a celebrity comes out. Suddenly, that celebrity becomes the queer Mother Teresa, someone who can do no wrong (though Christopher Hitchens has shown that even Mother Teresa was no saint). Rosie's done some great work, but that doesn't mean she's flawless. The gay media should be the place where a healthy, balanced discussion of her statements and actions takes place. Instead, too many in the gay media become starstruck sycophants.

Even smart people fall under the spell: longtime gay press reporter Rex Wockner, swooning that "Rosie?has handled herself fabulously in recent weeks," buys Rosie's statement that she's never been discriminated against as a gay person because, he claims, he has experienced discrimination only five times. Earth to Rex, come in please: the reason Rosie may believe she's never experienced discrimination is because she was closeted all these years. Or do you really believe that Rosie would have been handed a daytime talk show and a multimillion-dollar contract had she uttered the "L" word previously and let it be known that she might do so on her show? (An aside to this: if Rosie hasn't experienced discrimination, isn't she contradicting herself when she says that she doesn't want her kids to be gay because it's a "tougher" life?)

Because she is fearful of simply admitting that she was in the closet to advance her career, Rosie is now creating scapegoats and diversions. First she was saying she was never really in the closet. Now she's saying that she was, but that Musto and I were keeping her there. I'm flattered that Rosie would think that I might have the kind of notoriety that people, when they hear that she is gay, would think all about me, but I'm just not self-deluded enough to believe that one.

And this whole idea of not wanting people to "associate" her with certain gay people reveals that Rosie still thinks there's something unseemly to being gay. Most illustrative of this was her interview with Bill O'Reilly on The O'Reilly Factor recently. When the bombastic O'Reilly asked about Ellen DeGeneres' "in-your-face" way of coming out, Rosie agreed with O'Reilly that it was "offensive."

Now, from what I recall of DeGeneres' coming out, she simply let it be known that she was a lesbian, let it be known that she was in love with actress Anne Heche and was (initially, at least) as happy and affectionate with Heche in public as many heterosexual celebrity couples are. In discussing a plea that DeGeneres once made to a then-closeted Rosie to "march on Washington" in honor of the slain Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, Rosie commented to O'Reilly that part of why she declined was because "my worldview was not so myopic that all I see is gay issues. My worldview revolves around children."

It seems that it's not I, as Rosie put it, whose "idea of gay America consists of only those [deemed] worthy enough." This in fact appears to describe Rosie herself. Coming out in the way that DeGeneres did, just to be open about your life and to show your love and commitment to another human being publicly, is "offensive" to Rosie. Marching on Washington against antigay hate crimes is "myopic." But coming out with a "worldview" that "revolves around children" is the respectable way to come out.

Well, Rosie, I think it's great that you love children and want to adopt them. And I will support and fight for your right to do so. But please try to understand?try for a minute to think outside your own larger-than-life life?that for many others of us that's not the reason we came out. Many of us have a broad array of other issues and reasons?not the least of which is to simply live honestly?and none of them are "offensive." You don't want people to tell you the right way to be gay. That's fine. But don't tell us?and the rest of America?the right way to be gay either.

Michelangelo Signorile can be reached at [www.signorile.com](http://www.signorile.com).