...everybody's talking about it...George "Sulu" Takei coming out as a homosexual, of course. What'd you think I was talking about? But seriously: I'd heard tittle to the effect that Takei was gay years ago. When you live in the SF Bay Area, few gay celebrities are news.
But thinking this morning about why it's taken him this long, I was remembering one or two things I know about him from reading his intriguing autobiography. He's a man of an age when this sort of thing simply wasn't talked about. Not only that, he has direct experience of being persecuted simply because of who he is...he and his family were in internment camps in WW2.
He was only a child (4-8), which has to put the fear of god into you.
On a personal note, I've always kind of liked Takei; you didn't get to see enough of it in Star Trek (with rare exceptions) but anyone who's ever seen him at a convention knows he is a very personally charming man. And if you ever got a chance to see him in a television production of a play called Year of the Dragon by Frank Chin, you know he has muscles as an actor he almost never got to stretch. It's avalible on videotape at your better stores.
I'm glad, both for himself and for the gay and lesbian community, that he was able to take this step.
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