«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

As Massachusetts celebrated five years of gay marriage this year, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine and Iowa came on board. New Hampshire is on the verge, as is New York, and although the gay marriage ban is likely to be upheld in court in California this week, even former opponents say it can't last.But it is not just marriage. There are two openly lesbian women on the reported short list to fill the forthcoming vacancy on the supreme court. President Obama has appointed more than 30 gay men and lesbians to senior posts within his administration.

Comedian Wanda Sykes, African American and a lesbian, was the guest speaker at the high-profile White House Correspondents Dinner in front of Barack and Michelle Obama earlier this month. And in popular culture, gay singer Adam Lambert came a close second in the American Idol contest last week, in which 100 million viewers voted - only months after former Idol star Clay Aiken came out of the closet. Ellen DeGeneres has not only revived her TV career since her sitcom was cancelled in 1998 after she came out, but she has become a "face of CoverGirl" make-up model. Hollywood's Jodie Foster and Kelly McGillis recently came out after years in the closet, though male stars are noticeably more reluctant.Meanwhile, cable TV channel MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, 36, is a success with her eponymous politics show and a leading voice urging Obama to honour his promise to repeal the ban on openly gay personnel in the military.She hailed not a single tipping point, but "a day-to-day struggle" resulting in enormous progress over the past four decades, based on "more and more people coming out". She has been out since she was 17.

-The Observer
May 23 2009