Yesterday, in a New York Times article about his forthcoming book, the CNN news anchor Don Lemon effectively 'came out.'
There are only two other major news anchors who are 'out'; the others are Rachel Maddow and Thomas Roberts of MSNBC. So, through his public profile, Mr. Lemon hopes to encourage openness and feelings of security in other gay Americans.
His coworkers at CNN, he explains, have partly already known that he was gay, and the company is inviting him to appear on its shows to promote the book Transparency, like the Newsroom.
In the Times article, he says, “I think if I had seen more people like me who are out and proud, it wouldn’t have taken me 45 years to say it [. . .], to walk in the truth.”
The reaction to it seems to have been friendly. "I'm overwhelmed by all your tweets and support!", Mr. Lemon wrote on Twitter, "Hoping this prevents more tragedies like tyler clementi's suicide." (Background on Tyler Clementi.)
