By Melanie Nathan, July 02, 2012.

Neither splattered across the TV screen, “CNN’s Anderson Cooper comes out as GAY,” nor orchestrated on “The View,” (not yet anyway), but rather a little whisper to his pal The Dish’s  Andrew Sullivan:
” The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud. ……. I love, and I am loved.  In my opinion, the ability to love another person is one of God’s greatest gifts, and I thank God every day for enabling me to give and share love with the people in my life. I appreciate your asking me to weigh in on this, and I would be happy for you to share my thoughts with your readers. I still consider myself a reserved person and I hope this doesn’t mean an end to a small amount of personal space. But I do think visibility is important, more important than preserving my reporter’s shield of privacy.”

Anderson Cooper’s less than splashy coming out underpins two important facts – Firstly, who needs the big hooray these days anyway – subtle denotes a world where its no longer such a big deal and secondly – well duh! Who didn’t know that Anderson Cooper is gay?

But  perhaps Anderson has more of a duty for more of splash, for more than The Dish – after all it was he who spoke to the Anoka-Hennepin kids about suicide and bullying and he has clearly moved his reporting and journalistic realm from the war fields – his excuse for not coming out sooner – into our living rooms, as big brother to all.  He has re-invented his journalism and so clearly shifted into a more rounded figure in our lives.

And so after his excuse for not being overt about what he terms is his ‘private life,’ he  declares on The Dish :

“Recently, however, I’ve begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something – something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true. I’ve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible. There continue to be far too many incidences of bullying of young people, as well as discrimination and violence against people of all ages, based on their sexual orientation, and I believe there is value in making clear where I stand.”

Nonetheless as much as we in our LGBT enclave all knew, probably most of America did not have a clue and this may well be big news for them  – so here as I raise my morning coffee to the sky- with L’Chaim – and Mazeltov Anderson – I wonder if in fact we will see the biggie “CNN’s Anderson Cooper is GAY!”

The rest of the Article and coming out declaration can be read here:- andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/07/anderson-cooper-the-fact-is-im-gay.html

There are those who feel Anderson should have come out earlier.