Anderson Cooper, step off the throne — there’s another queen in town. MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts has been out since 2006 and come late-September, longtime partner Patrick Abner will make an honest man out of him.
Roberts and Abner will marry in Manhattan with 150 guests in attendance so in preparation, Roberts has flown into full bridezilla mode. He told The New York Observer, “I was on the treadmill for three miles this morning. I will be on it for three miles tomorrow. I had a Red Bull for lunch and I eat gum. I’m the typical groom!”
You say groom, we say “where’s the veil?”
After being canned at CNN — not a result of his coming out or so he claims — Roberts resurfaced at MSNBC where he’s taken a decidedly less objective stance than the silver-haired squire of Gloria Vanderbilt. Though he doesn’t necessarily make a beeline to LGBT-centric stories, Roberts believes that his seshuality can be an asset when covering them.
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“Because I am who I am, I can provide a different viewpoint, because people at home might know who I am or where I’ve come from—and that’s O.K.,” the blushing anchor said.
His relative forthrightness doesn’t mean that Roberts begrudges Mr. Johnny Coming-Out-Lately. Rather, Roberts sounds proud of his former colleague. “Now people can stop asking me when do you think Anderson’s going to come out,” Roberts said. “I have had that for years! And I think it’s great … I think he’s in a place now where he wants that personal-professional synergy. And he deserves that.”
Since things are so chummy-chummy between the two, hopefully Cooper will turn up as maid of honor at the wedding. Or at the very least, flower gay.
Kieran
C’mon all you closeted gay Men who are indistinguishable from straight Men, “come out of the closet” so that the idiotic editors of Queerty can get their jollies refering to you as “queens” and “maids of honor”.
Because afterall, everybody knows if you’re homosexual you really want to put on a dress and tiarra and wear make-up, right?
cam
Wow, this sounds like it was written by a straight woman who doesn’t like gays. Very bitchy.
Congratulations to the happy couple!
marc
This topic du jour is tedious, I dont care what they have in their mouths whilst in a sling, Can they function as objective reporters? I dont care if they are profoundly repulsive, if they can be objective, correct, concise and through, they get my vote. this man with his odd idea what constitutes a news item is pointless. Perhaps he can stay at home and paint the kitchen ‘buttercup.’
Lifer
So, does this mean no more CL ads for this Tommy?
David Ehrenstein
@cam: Either a straigth woman or Ann Coulter.
I thought this was a gay-friendly site.
Apparently it isn’t.
ChrisC
Is “Lester”, Ann Coulters drag name?
Atlas
This article is ridiculously homophobic. So homophobic, I’m seriously considering no longer reading Queerty.
timncguy
Seriously Queerty…. can we drop the female pronouns when talking about gay MEN?????
Chip Dukes
This is the most insulting, ridiculous news article I’ve read on Queerty–and that’s saying something. Why worry about the homophobia of businesses like Chick-fil-A when we have members of our own community to degrade us?!
Congratulations to you, Thomas, and to Patrick. Thank you for your professionalism–I hope the person who wrote this article will start watching your show and can learn what it means to be a professional journalist.
mike ramon
Now if Roberts and Patrick were real nellie and wore drag a lot and sa-shayed as they walked, then maybe, it would be o.k. to use the female pronouns. But Roberts and Patrick do not act that way, as most gay men do not, so nix the female pronouns and veils and all of that other junk. When I see two men get married to each other I want to see two MEN get married to each other, not some prissies.
Danny
This was a surprisingly homophobic article. Thomas Roberts is a very nice guy.
Soakman
I agree with everyone else. Very poor taste. Just what demographic are you guys writing for anyway?
Woody
Offensive. An attempt to compete with Perez Hilton. I would prefer mature, intelligent Queerty posts from a journalist who is edited. Instead we get unfiltered, inappropriate camp from an under-educated blogger attempting to be humorous. Yes, camp is part of our subculture but c’mon Queerty find some class, practice a little journalistic ethics and stop leaving your readers with a feeling of embarrassment and disgust.
Oh, by the way, was this word used correctly in the above article?
Squire n
1. (Sociology) a country gentleman in England, esp the main landowner in a rural community
2. (Historical) Feudal history – a young man of noble birth, who attended upon a knight
3. (Rare) a man who courts or escorts a woman
4. (Informal chiefly British) a term of address used by one man to another, unless ironic, to a member of a higher social class
Congrats to Gloria Vanderbilt on her knighthood…
Geoff
@Woody:
Thanks, Woody was wondering about that.
5. (Old, obscure Southern) – to squire – the act of a gentleman attending upon a lady while they are courting.
Uh, Les, for what word were you looking? Spawn?
hf2hvit
@ChrisC: Probably not but she is the father of Mary Cheney’s baby.
The Real Mike in Asheville
Lester, WTF dude?
Did you take notes from Rush Limbaugh?
Chuck
Thomas Roberts is a class act. This is how it’s done. And he did it without a 10th of the resources or security that Anderson did. It’s called integrity. Congratulations Thomas!
Daez
All of you that are bitching here need to chill out. You are both taking this way to seriously and being extremely pro-cisgendered. My partner and I joke about traditional marriage (male and female) roles all the time when we talk about our upcoming marriage. It is just joking around. It is not meant to be serious.
This is a gay blog. It is supposed to be campy. It is supposed to be non-serious. It is supposed to be a blog. If you want a serious news blog then go read MSNBC, CNN or FOX News (yeah I was totally joking about the last one).
Truth Wins
I am convinced that what finally drove Anderson Cooper out of the closet was Thomas Roberts (justifiably) getting better seats at HRC events.
Daez
Also, since the clip was linked to I will consider it fair game to discuss. Divorce is not the “true evil” of marriage. NOM should not be working to stop divorce. Those comments were beyond stupid.
Maybe Mr. Roberts would like to see what a loveless, abusive relationship is like when two people choose to stay together simply because they have children or because their religious doctrine dictates it. What is the true evil of marriage is when a “god fearing Christian woman” covers her bruises with makeup because she actually believes that she needs to obey her husband and stay with him because of religious doctrine no matter how many times he puts her in the hospital.
timncguy
@Daez: Unless Queerty’s goal is to be the “People” magazine or “National Enquirer” of gay blogs, then NO, NO, NO, gay is not required to equal either campy or non serious.
ChrisC
@hf2hvit: I CAN’T BREATHE.
janice
I dont know what Patrick looks like, but I think Thomas would make a beautiful bride. He’s so gorgeous.
J
Why do some gay men feel the need o be mean nasty bitch&s? It isn’t cute. Especially when older men do it.
LeoMarius
I think it’s exciting that 2 prominent cable news anchors are wedding their boyfriends this fall. I don’t get the nasty, homophobic tone in this article. Why is Queerty mocking someone for being gay?
LeoMarius
@Daez: There is a difference between campy and nasty. Having fun at someone else’s expense is not funny.
The defense of the bully has always been: “I was just kidding! Can’t you take a joke?”
Cam
@Woody:
I could be wrong, but I think he meant to say “Scion”. So basically it came out sounding like when Mike Tyson tries to use a “Big Word” to sound intelligent but only ends up sounding more foolish.
So first we have Dan Avery refusing to write anything about the Mormon Church’s constant anti-gay activity and using the blog to push his anti-Jewish beliefs, and now we have this guy Lester Brathwaite who just seems to flat out not like gay people.
Woody
@Daez:
In my opinion, “queen, bride’s maid, flower gay, and suggesting a groom wear a veil” is appropriate when camp is used with your partner or friends – not when blogging about respected gay journalists or strangers.
Gay does not EQUAL camp. Gay INCLUDES camp in appropriate situations. I visit this blog daily because of their “gay agenda”. Even though an occassional post is inappropriate or seems to be unedited, I still follow Queerty because of the timely and varied information on gay society and subculture. Queerty says nothing about focusing on inappropriate camp as humor or to elicit angry responses as their vision or business statement – so, complaints regarding unprofessionalism are valid. Posts such as this makes me think that if I find another site with quick, concise, varied, short information, (without the rudeness) I will surely shift my news source.
According to wikipedia’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog definition: multi-author blogs are “posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited”, “most good quality blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments”, “build social relations with their readers”.
“The Blogger’s Code of Conduct is a proposal… for bloggers to enforce civility on their blogs by being civil themselves:
1.Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2.Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3.Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4.Ignore the trolls. (a troll is someone who posts inflammatory or off-topic messages in a blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. The noun troll may refer to the provocative message itself)
5.Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6.If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7.Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.”
“The impact of blogging upon the mainstream media … journalism industry had declined to the point that several newspaper corporations were filing for bankruptcy, … President Barack Obama acknowledged the emerging influence of blogging upon society by saying “if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, then what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding”
Daez, I’m guessing that if you were to take a tour of Capitol Hill and spot Barney Frank across the House chambers you would wave frantically while yelling “HEY GIRL!” and find that to be funny and appropriate. On the other hand, I would think of it, whisper to my partner, we would both giggle and snicker quietly, but would never actually be so inappropriate as to say it.
jack
Why do you refer to him as “another queen”? I am a gay MAN and hate the use of those feminine descriptions of gay MEN. Many of us gay MEN are MEN who just like having sex with other MEN. Use your feminine descriptions only where applicable.
Robert B. Rodgers
Thomas Roberts is the ONLY real resource that we have these days for news and information about the LGBT community. Rachael Maddow (one of my favorite Lesbian news personalities), who I loved for many years, has become so irritating with her vapid rants and the incessant repeating of the same words with “nails on a chalkboard” shrillness that she is unbearable to watch. One has to wonder if girlfriend is in serious need of meds for some sort of mental condition, with the way that she has destroyed her show (that has very important information, but profoundly irritating delivery makes it un-watchable). With Anderson being part of the unreliable CnN (little “n” for little actual news accuracy), he will be un-watchable until he moves to a real News network like PBS, LinkTV, or CurrentTV.
I hate it that Logo is worthless to the LGBT community, and no longer has its news show. There is absolutely nothing worth watching on that network, because ALL of the programming is vapid, repetitive, and denigrating to LGBT people. They do not even have the soft-core porn quality of Showtime, or FX. Logo has been so mismanaged, that when I see any advertiser while flipping channels, I make note of the product and ALWAYS boycott it. Bad programming must be punished by boycotting advertisers, and emails sent when to the companies for their unforgivable sin of supporting bad programming. Naturally, no one more deserves support of all their advertisers than Thomas Roberts MSNBC show. It is also important to send emails to those advertisers praising their choice to advertise on his show because he is a positive example of the LGBT community.
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