The point. You missed it.

Calling Sorkin a coke-addled writer simply illustrates you are the moron everyone on this forum knows you to be.

If they worked on a TV show with Aaron Sorkin for 4 years and purposefully kept their relationship secret for whatever reason, then yes Aaron Sorkin should stfu about something that is absolutely none of his business.

We get it. You are a homophobe. No need to keep stating it over and over.

Sure, sure. But then what does you saying that Sorkin is perfectly within his rights to posthumously out a guy he worked with for a few years say about you?

you know, actors aren't as gay as they used to be.

my theory is that gays aren't as marginalized as they used to be, so no longer need to escape(as much) to communities like theater

I think a really great default rule is that if someone has worked really hard at keeping something about themselves secret, you shouldn't reveal that something without their permission. Even if they're dead. Even if you think their decision to keep it secret was dumb and they should have actually been proud of that thing they were hiding. [There are obviously exceptions to this! I am not advocating that, for example, police officers or even whistleblowers should apply this default rule universally.]

You offered the example of your dad choosing to come out to illustrate why it's ok to posthumously out someone without their consent. That was dumb.

The point. You missed it twice.

The example was to illustrate that gay people feel comfortable coming out now when they wouldn't a few years ago. I think Spencer and my fathers decision to stay in the closet made sense in the early 2000s especially given their age and life history. The point is it is very likely Spencer would be out now if he were still alive.

Let me be extreme, it's 2110. America has had several gay presidents. Being guy is the same as being straight in societies eyes. Someone is writing a history of the West Wing. You are arguing they still shouldn't mention he was gay.

No we're saying that some guy who worked with Spencer for like four years shouldn't out Spencer. It's none of Sorkin's business. It isn't his place.

FYP (with the bolded and underlined text, if it's not clear)

You are, in the formal usage of the term, begging the question. You are assuming the basis of your argument - that Spencer would have been happy to be out. If that assumption is true, then I agree that what Sorkin did is harmless. However, I have no reason to think your assumption is true, which is why I think Sorkin did a dumb-dumb thing.


If you're a historian who's willing to report on a person's life, knowing that you'll be making public many things that the person wouldn't have wanted you to make public, sure. I have no idea how this speaks to Sorkin's actions.

You can have the last word. I'll just assume I missed your point again.

You are wrong. It isn't his place if he was alive. Societal-induced shame and fear doesn't survive death, especially when society itself has changed.

The fact that you and keed don't think the probably of someone being in the closet has decreased since 2005 illustrates only your bias.

which is why if anyone should do it it should be the people closest to the closeted person. Not, uh, some guy who wrote a TV show for a few years the closeted person worked on

I agree w/SenorKeed.

My feeling is Sorkin can do it if he had the blessing of Spencer's family to divulge this information. Otherwise it's certainly not his decision to make.

The strange part is now that I've listened to so many interviews with Sorkin, he is generally very careful with his words, and this seemed like a really big mistake (again, unless he was given permission/asked by Spencer's family). The interesting thing was it was an aside - not really pertinent to the conversation which was taking place.

You guys arguing his family should decide are forgetting it is very common that same family is why they stayed in the closet. 4/10 LGBT people are rejected by their family when they come out.

Society is largely accepting of LGBT people now. The only reason the closet exists is because of shame. Arguing people should forever be in the closet because they were victims of being born at the wrong time only lends weight to that shame. It's like you are saying he was born in a time it was not OK to be gay so we should operate as if that is true forever.

Clovis is just putting on a clinic in bad posting in here.

Ftr, I disagree with Keeed almost everywhere else, and he has terrible terrible takes, and yet Clovis is the one who is wrong here.

You think a person belongs in the closet forever because they happen to be born at a time bigots ruled. I am absolutely not the wrong one here.

By your logic we shouldn't know that Ed Koch, Hepburn, Liberace, or Whitney Houston were gay. All died in the closet.

if Sorkin knew each of those folks was gay and it wasn't yet public knowledge should he have taken it upon himself to out them as well?

While alive, of course not. It's choice while someone is alive. Twenty years after thier death, and once a massive societal shift in the acceptance of LGBT people has happened, yes.

You position is that they remain in the closet forever if they were in it when they died.

uh, no, just that some guy they worked with for a couple of years probably isn't the right person to decide that.

You keep saying "some guy he worked with" as if they were practically strangers. Neither you nor I know how close of friends they were. I do know the following though

1) Sorkin knew he was gay even though he was in the closet,
2) they worked together for 5 years on one of the most intense shows ever recorded. Famous for the hours,
3) they both wrestled with addiction and spoke about how they helped each other, and
4) both are on the record dozens of times talking about thier affection for each other.

Now are we just arguing WHO has the right to out him?

I'm honestly not sure where I stand on this, but Clovis is sure doing a terrible job of restating his opposition's argument.

I think some more context might help. nyc999 - if you can remember (and if you don't mind transcribing what you remember), how exactly did Sorkin make the reveal? Given Sorkin's talent for words, I want to believe that he segued gracefully into the reveal, and hopefully it wasn't awkward like "Oh, well, speaking of John..."

I was being unnecessarily hostile to spider by lumping him in with keed. For that I apologize. Keed is nothing more than a lame troll, and not an entertaining one.

I can understand the thinking behind not outing someone like Spencer. You think you are honoring his wishes, which is admirable. But it ignores the fact that his desire to be in the closet was not a personal choice, it was a violence inflicted on him by a hostile society. No person in the closet wants to be in the closet. They are forced in there by bigots.

This is why there is a strong positive correlation between acceptance of LGBT issues and LGBT people coming out. It is also why it is highly likely that someone like Spencer would not have remained in the closet in 2018 simply because he was there in 2005. Evidence for this is the fact that people around him obviously knew he was gay, even "some guy he worked with".

I simply don't understand the argument that someone must remain in the closet forever if they died there. Especially since we know with certainty it is the very act of adding to the ranks of the LGBT, especially among well known people, that has allowed society to change its views. The number one predictor of acceptance of LGBT people is knowing one.

Clovis,

I think it's fantastic that your Dad could come out.

FV,

You mean times have changed since my appearance in North Reading Theater Workshop's production of Guys And Dolls in 1987???

Sorkin dropped it in a story about how it didn’t match his roles / known upbringing - he left home at 15 to attend an art high school, then always had “tough guy” roles, where he had an edge/roughness even if he played a nice guy.

He then went into how he felt he couldn’t come out.

However that entire story came up simply by someone mentioning his name, it wasn’t linked to a larger conversation.