Maybe we won’t pass judgment on Miami’s ABC affiliate WPLG until we hear their side of things in front of the Equal Opportunity Board, but when it comes to the firing of gay news anchor Charles Perez, one thing is becoming entirely clear: there was a climate of discrimination there. And not only was it ethically wrong and quite likely illegal, it was bad for business.
Following a discrimination complaint and firing, Perez — a former daytime talk show host — isn’t going quietly into the night. And that’s a good thing, because we need to hear more about workplaces where gay men and women are nudged to stay in the closet, or outright forced to remain there.
While WPLG will likely defend itself against any notion of discrimination, as Perez tells The Advocate, when it came to the people watching him — and there were a lot: his news broadcast was No. 1 in the market — viewers just didn’t care if he was a homo.
About 99% of the viewers don’t, at least in terms of phone calls and e-mails I’ve received and the people who come up to me on the street. I was in an elevator the other day and some old Latino guy came up to me — could barely speak English and was glad I could respond to him in Spanish; he was probably about 70 years old — he said, “We support you!” But I don’t think this is about the viewer. This is about advertising dollars and this is about the tendency in America to homogenize the product so that it is the least objectionable product they can put out there. That’s why they don’t care if they have gay reporters or gay producers, but if you’re the main anchor of the station, just as if you’re the main person on a talk show, they’re selling the advertising dollars on your face, and I don’t know if something happened there or not, but something smelled. As a reporter I’ve learned that when something smells, it means that something is rotten. I don’t know if an advertiser called and said, “You know what, guys, I’ve got a $10 million advertising budget, but I don’t like that you’ve got that homo sitting on the desk.”
I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find out in discovery when we actually have the hearing, but something changed. It was sudden, and it was a shift that not only I felt, but my coworker felt just as strongly. She thought it might be for other reasons because I have a gay news director. It was hard for her to contemplate that it would be for my sexuality, but what she wasn’t thinking was one step beyond that, which is the team of men sitting above the news director around a table who are telling him what to do.
And ya know who’s not helping things? A certain CNN anchor.
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I’ve spoken with Anderson but have never met him. Anderson was on Oprah; he did an hour with his mom. It was great. He talked about his childhood. He talked about his brother’s suicide. He talked about wanting to be a journalist and going to Africa in his 20s with his own camera. And I applaud him for that. There are a lot of kids who come from privilege who would have never done that. I applaud him as a newsman.
But I thought something very interesting. I thought, If you had a straight newsman with that profile of that same age, who is reasonably handsome, who is unmarried, would Oprah not have even asked the question if he was seeing somebody? And I can only imagine that it was negotiated ahead of time, or it was understood between them. And that’s the difference. It’s a subtlety that really needs to end. It’s great that Anderson is on the air and he is as successful as he is. But there is a difference now between gay men and gay women. It’s twofold. Gay women have had the benefit of giants like Ellen and Rosie. They may not have been in news, but they have certainly blazed the trail. In the television industry, it is still acceptable to have gay men in a stereotype that straight men feel comfortable with, whether it is Steven Cojocaru or Jack on Will & Grace. But the Will of Will & Grace still makes them uncomfortable. And that is partly our fault. I’m not kidding here. I’m not a perfect gay man. There were times when I could have been more out than I was, where I could have done more, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t now.
And that’s the truth. When it comes to gay news talent, very few of these men are out of the closet. Yes, everyone knows CNN’s Anderson Cooper is gay, but while he publicly talks about his personal life, he never mentions the part about liking boys. Same goes for Good Morning America‘s Sam Champion; he’s not exactly closeted, but you won’t hear anything about that part of his personal life on air.
Does the news media still have a culture of forcing gays to stay in the closet?
Likely, but it’s still chicken-and-egg: Until more high-profile gay newscasters come out — and not just among friends and gossip columns — there will still be a taboo about letting openly gay men man the main chair. Perez was sitting (relatively) pretty at WPLG until an email to his therapist about his sexuality began circulating, and his breakup with his boyfriend became higher profile. If none of that happened, would Perez still have a job? Hard to say.
Will Anderson Cooper be forced out of CNN if he began talking openly about being a gay man? Also: hard to tell. But CNN chief Jon Klein is notorious for replacing women of a certain age with pretty young things and strapping men, so it’s not outside the realm of possibilities that his choose-y hiring practices would extend to out gay men.
What’s so interesting, then, is that while the news biz (and particularly local newscasts in many areas) has become a high point for diversity — with black anchors seated next to white and Hispanic anchors, with lady anchors seated next to male anchors, with chubby anchors working alongside slim anchors — the last remaining place where it’s still kosher to discriminate is against the gays.
(Okay, to be fair, you won’t see a transgender anchor anytime soon, either.)
galefan2004
I really fail to see what sexual orientation has to do with your ability to do your job. That goes BOTH ways though. You shouldn’t be discriminated against for being gay, but you shouldn’t bring the fact that you are gay to the work place overtly either. When talking to work friends of course its alright for you to bring up your orientation and that shouldn’t be frowned upon. When dealing with the public or your clients/customers you really shouldn’t bring up your sexual orientation regardless of what it is.
It seems to me that this dude is wanting to make a bigger name for himself because of his “discrimination” by a gay boss that can’t possibly have anything to do with him going through multiple personal problems. I know I’m going to offend every transgendered person out there, but when you first start considering that you might be transgendered you probably aren’t focusing solely on work the way you should be at a job.
Ohomo
Judge for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoTMt12Rh-8
Tom
Anderson asked Kenny Chesney if he was gay, did he not?
Anderson asked that woman the last time he was on R&K how many of the men she had sex with, didn’t he?
seems somewhat hypocritical to me.
Larry King (for example) and many interviewers will ask a guest if they are dating. This never happens to Anderson.
Is he embarrassed?
Of course it has nothing to do with his capabilities in his job.
Josh
Maybe Anderson himself is also workin’ it himself – keeping the ladies watching him just in case he is straight? There’s always that chance!
Has Sam Champion and Shep Smith been asked directly if they are gay? If so, do they give same type of circular nonsense response Anderson gives?
Qjersey
@galefan2004:
“I really fail to see what sexual orientation has to do with your ability to do your job”
Aside from the “stereotypes,” let’s see.
HIV prevention & clinic workers (always a pleasant experience as a gay man to get sneered at the health clinic by the hets at the counter)
Sex workers (str8 trade..nice fantasy but that’s about it)
Medical personnel…yes I switched to a gay doc after my female doc said to me when I requested an HIV test: “What you’ve been bad?” Gay Doc: Yeah condoms suck and kill your hardon, would you like me to prescribe some Viagra to make condoms easier to use?”
Journalism/writing about LGBT topics: okay there is plenty of evidence about this
give me time, I’ll think of more
Dabq
This is yet another example of why we need strong federal laws on the books and laws with teeth to stop work place discrimination. To be fired for being gay is just ridiculous, and, yet, in most states its allowed and it happens daily, and, to those who aren’t doing anything but a good job in almost all the cases and few can even sue and win, and, its a major reason why many gays sadly stay in the closet.
anon
@Tom: Nope. He didn’t ask Chesney if he was gay, Chesney brought that up himself, though it has been misreported multiple times. Just watch the interview.
And the woman was airing her personal life on a reality show picking her future husband/sex partner, also not really the same thing.
But yes, he’s perfectly capable of doing his job. Ugh. Why can’t people just get over this shit.
@Josh: Shep basically gives the same answer, yes. But he’s also been married, he does discuss that.
Sleeping Beauty
“I was in an elevator the other day and some old Latino guy came up to me — could barely speak English and was glad I could respond to him in Spanish; he was probably about 70 years old —”
Yeah? And what does his AGE have to do with anything? It sounds like Mr. Perez was amazed the man was out in public unattended and could walk and talk. Is that man;s support somehow less valid than some young man’s?
Age discrimination is unacceptable, gay or straight .
galefan2004
@Qjersey: Funny because around here there is no clinic so we have to go to our doctor to get a perscription for an HIV test then go to the hospital then wait a week. If you can’t handle dealing with hetero people while getting HIV tested then don’t put yourself at risk.
That is just sad that the doctor is willing to hand you Viagra like its candy but that is the doctor you would rather go to because he is gay. Unless of course you are actually having erectile dysfunction.
Believe it or not, journalist can be unbiased on the topic and actually write a much better story. They don’t have to be a gay journalist to write about gay topics.
The Gay Numbers
Yes, entertainment, of which news is a part, likes the closet because like your site, they want to sell ads, but unlike your site, need to sell ads for a lot more dollars.
galefan2004
@The Gay Numbers: I don’t see this as an excuse. Sears and Levi’s are still two of the biggest advertisers in the market and both of them are very gay friendly. Hell, Levi’s even yanked their support of the Boy Scouts after the court case that decided that the scouts could legally discriminate because it was a private organization.
mk
The fact Thomas Roberts formerly of CNN is nowhere on TV after being unable to find any job in news or to even hang on to the job on a tabloid show for any length of time can’t be reassuring to gay males in cable news.
rudy
And yet if you’re the straight Lou Dobbs or Glen Beck you can lose all sanity and even the pretense of journalistic integrity and not only keep your job, but be rewarded.
The Gay Numbers
I am not putting the site down. In fact, I am saying that money can cause people to do nasty things- like create institutional homophobia. So, if we are going looking to ask the question- is the industry homophobic, it is good to know why.
jason
Sometimes gay bosses can be the worst when it comes to discrimination against gays. A gay boss might not be homophobic but he may use homophobic reasoning to get rid of a gay employee. Homophobic reasoning may be in the form of “our viewers don’t like gays” or “America isn’t ready for a gay newsreader”.
Take-home message is this: beware of homophobic reasoning.
LadyL
I know I’ve come to this party a few days late, still I couldn’t resist responding to Perez’s story, or rather to certain of the comments about it here:
@galefan2004
“You shouldn’t be discriminated against for being gay, but you shouldn’t bring the fact that you are gay to the workplace overtly, either.”
Excuse me, please?? That statement completely ignores the fact–the FACT, galefan–that hetero workers think nothing of bringing the fact of THEIR sexual orientation into the workplace, “overtly” or otherwise, every single day!
I’ve been a working adult for nearly 3 decades now. In every office or workspace where I have been employed, straight fellow employees have proudly displayed on their cubicle walls and desks all manner of evidence of their personal lives, especially scads of photos of their kids and spouses or significant others. The marrieds come to work each day grousing–sometimes jokingly, sometimes not–about life with their Better Half, the singletons come in with glowing details about last night’s hot rendezvous and an eagerly anticipated weekend getaway with the latest object of their affection… unless, that is, they come in bemoaning the latest loser they felt compelled to endure on the previous evening’s travesty of a date.
Either way, you can’t get away from the information overload–don’t get me started on what happens with the approach of St. Valentine’s Day–and given how much of their lives working people spend on the job, it’s really not surprising.
And as for dealings with “the public” (which presumably would include customers and clients)– just how is a gay person supposed to respond when “the public” brings up personal matters, chatting about their own family and/or love life–and then asking you about yours? People do that you know, and even in these post-Ellen, post-Will & Grace, post-Queer As Folks times, straight people have an annoying tendency to assume that everyone in the room is hetero like them.
What do you do if you’re not hetero like them? Are we really expected to lie? Why should we have to? Why are the rules still different for some?
Daniel
What is so bizarre is that Anderson Cooper spoke openly about such intimate issues on Oprah as his bother’s suicide and his own struggles. Why in the world would someone flaunt such personal issues in public if our sexual orientation is such a ‘private’ issue. I mean it’s not as if we’ve ever seen Obama, Bush, or Cheney’s sex partner. A politician would NEVER think of parading his bedroom partner during an election or in public because what could his bedroom sex trick possibly have to do with his job?
LadyL
@Daniel:
Actually, we HAVE seen Obama, Bush and Cheney’s sex partners–their names are Michelle, Laura and Lynn, respectively. 🙂
But seriously, I think I take your meaning. The problem is that LGBT people are still too often seen through hetero eyes as walking sex organs, as though the fact of our sexual orientation is all there is to us. When Obama, Bush, Cheney et al introduced their spouses to the public, or were interviewed with them, they weren’t throwing open their bedroom doors and inviting everyone to watch. It’s unfair in the extreme that gay people are so often seen this way; that’s what I meant about there seeming to be two sets of rules regarding LGBT people in the workplace.
And as for Anderson Cooper–I could just smack him. Keepin’ ’em honest,” indeed! As is noted above, Charles Perez speculated in his Advocate interview that Cooper likely negotiated ahead of time what subjects would be off the table with the Oprah interview. I’ll bet that’s exactly what happened–to make up for his unwillingness to allow any questions about his dating life, he offered up his brother’s suicide and other issues instead. Kind of like the way the supposedly “notoriously private” Jodie Foster invited People magazine into her home for pictures of her new children as a trade off for avoiding the subject of her life with her partner. Pathetic.
It shouldn’t matter about some people in public life being gay. But when some are punished for it, as Perez appears to have been, and others like Anderson and Foster resort to trade-offs and subterfuge, something is wrong and the subject needs to be dealt with honestly and openly.