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Young Hollywood actor Paul Iacono (The Hard Life of RJ Berger) appeared on MTV News recently, elaborating on his decision to come out to Michael Musto in the Village Voice.
“I think at the moment, we need to have gay pride, because there are so many people who don’t feel as comfortable as I do,” says Iacono, 23. “And it’s taken me a very long time to get to be comfortable about it, but it’s our duty to the community to step forward and be vocal. I’m gay, it’s cool.”
Here here!
Drew
It’s not just gay pride we need it’s LGBT pride too. Then again a lot of idiots on MTV are monosexist.
Alexi3
“At the moment, we need to have gay pride”? I’m not sure I unserstand. You’re 23 and it’s taken you a long time to get this comfortable. This statement puzzels me as well and it speaks to the ignorance about our history. Just imagine yourself being 23 but instead of it being 2012 it’s the year 1962. How many people do you think were comfortable about coming out in 1963 at 23. How long did they have to wait to feel comfortable? At what age? How many years did they lose? How wonderful to be able to come out and be who you are while still young. I can’t really imagine what it must have been like to be young and have to hide who you are from everyone. We have come a long way since then and we owe a great deal to those who came before us. In 1963 being gay was illegal in every state of the Union. You could, not could, would lose your job; go to jail; have your name and address printed in the local paper; you could be court sentenced to mental institutions where your parents could and often did authorize the doctors to perform a lombotomy and take away your sense of self rather than have to admit they had a gay child. I’m glad he came out publicly; I don’t know something about this just bothered me. But, I agree, “Here, Here”!
JayKay
@Drew:
Stow the buzzwords, leftist. Many of us are perfectly content as gay men without becoming T2QPNLXBOXLIVEG gender warriors.
AEH
Maybe Paul is referring to the current political climate and how LGBT rights seem to be tied to everything we do. I think he’s calling for more visibility, maybe? I don’t think he meant to be ignorant.
mike128
I think he’s more eloquent than I would have been on television talking about coming out at age 23. Good for him.
Amy
*The Hard TImes of RJ Berger
Sed
There is absolutely no reason to be mad at Paul. He didn’t have to come out but he did. Good for him.
WillBFair
I just hope he didn’t smash his carreer.
Alexi3
I’m not angry with Paul and as I said I wasn’t sure what bothered me about the piece. I’ve given it some more thought and I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole issue of how we all tend to take the way things are for granted, as if they were always that way and no one ever had to pay a price for rights and freedoms we enjoy, has been brewing inside of me for some time and his words just happened to hit the right or wrong button. I do applaude what he did and said so. Should Paul happen to read this I would want to tell him that I didn’t mean any attack on him and I apologize if that is how I came accross. Wasn’t wise or right of me to work my thoughts out in print. Goes to show how well I would do in a tv interview.
Cam
@Drew: said…
“It’s not just gay pride we need it’s LGBT pride too. Then again a lot of idiots on MTV are monosexist.”
_________________-
And there it is, in a wonderful story about a brave gay man, who comes, out…one of the folks who constantly claim that “Gays” are closed minded, uses that story as a time to attack gays, and complain.
It reminds me of the day that gay marriage became legal in NY, and a Transgender leader used it as an opportunity to write a long editorial attacking the gay community.
Truly sickening.
Lefty
He’s cool, intelligent and supercute.
And brave.
Good for him x
(Looking forward to seeing his new show next year)
Nick
@Cam who cares? It’s true. A lot of gay men are bi ph_obic, trans pho_bic, ra_cist, hetero ph_obic, and not for sexual freedom or equality among LGBT people at all.
Dennis
@Nick:
And what if they are? why do you care?
I’m slightly transphobic and I’m also racist at times, just like most people.
And what Cam was refering to is that Transgenders have just as much trouble with social acceptancy or probably even more than gays, yet still go into a fit and attack the gay community while they are kind of in the same situation. We’re supposed to support each other not mindlessly attack one another over one side getting a little more freedom.
It’s like when black people completely flipped out when people were comparing the struggle that gay people have to the struggle black people had back in slave times.
That’s just my opinion, call me a stupid 17 year old who has no idea how the world works, but it’s my opinion.
GinaSF
JayKay and Cam, Wow, your bigotry is sad yet somehow not surprising. As a transgendered person I have often been told by gays and lesbians that I’m not welcome and my struggles are not related. It is people like you that I want to pity but all I can do is feel anger and resentment towards.
You are no different than the Bachmanns, Falwells and the Westboro church folks of this world. The fact that you don’t see it is sad, pathetic and asinine.
B
No. 2 · Alexi3 wrote, “‘At the moment, we need to have gay pride’? I’m not sure I understand. You’re 23 and it’s taken you a long time to get this comfortable.”
Watch the video – he said he had been out 5 years (approximately) to his family and friends, which would make him 18 at the time, possibly still in high school. His statement was about coming out in an interview that might be heard/seen/read by a very large number of people. What he probably needed some time to be comfortable about was coming out as a public figure without the whole thing spinning out of control: it wouldn’t do if interviews about some film project always turned into questions about his personal life and nothing about the film.
Also, from a practical standpoint, very few 23 year olds get to come out as he just did, mainly because nobody would bother interviewing them.
Lefty
re his career, he was by far the best actor in RJ Berger. He’s definitely a talented actor, so I think his career as an actor will be fine. Good luck to him. 🙂
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