A few years ago, The Big Daddy and I were at a Christmas party and the subject of the news came up. It was the year of Anna Nicole Smith’s overdose and I wondered if journalism could get any lamer when that was the lead story of so many newscasts. Then I said, “Even Anderson Cooper, who I happen to love, is spending too much time on that crap.”
An acquaintance of ours said, “Well, that’s because he’s gay.”
Whoa. Back up. What did you just say?
The Big Daddy has never been one to walk away or ignore an offensive comment, so he and the offender heatedly went back and forth for a few minutes, neither one willing to back down. She finally said, “Lighten up, it was a joke.” He told her it lacked the essentials of a joke – humor.
This week Anderson Cooper did confirm that he is gay, and even though we’ve come a long way, it is a courageous leap of faith to tell the world that you love and share your life with another man. It is also courageous to go to New Orleans and Mississippi after Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan, Joplin, Virginia Tech, Ground Zero, Haiti, Indonesia and Japan……………and do the painful job of looking at survivors who have lost everything they value in life and ask them to describe what happened so that the rest of the world can stay informed.
