

James Randi comes out of the closet at 81 - MikeCapone
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/914-how-to-say-it.html

======
jgrahamc
I had to "come out" as straight live on BBC Radio Manchester when I was
running the Alan Turing apology campaign. The interviewer assumed I was gay
and asked me a question about the gay community. Didn't have any clue and
figured the best thing was to "admit" that I was straight.

During the campaign I received hate email suggesting that I was gay, the Prime
Minister told me that I was "brave", and many, many people assume I'm gay
because of Turing.

It's such a shame that people think that way, after all, it couldn't possibly
be the case that a straight man thought that treating a gay man badly was the
wrong thing to do.

Good on Randi for coming out. Now let's move on to other things that are more
important.

~~~
alex_c
That's funny - I simply assumed you were a geek. Whether or not you were gay
didn't even cross my mind.

~~~
swombat
It is very brave to come out as a geek.

~~~
fnid2
What would a closet geek be like?

~~~
olefoo
IDE has a boss key that replaces a page of code with a spreadsheet of shipping
manifests.

~~~
eru
Or ed having a bosskey that showed an IDE.

------
AndrewO
I really debated whether or not to upvote this. I'm guessing that HN has a
higher percentage of people who like (or at least know of) Randi than the
general public, so it certainly fits the "general interest" guideline. But I'd
also (like to) think that we're getting to a point (at least in this
community) where this is so acceptable as to not warrant mention. I also
worried that I'd be contributing to the "Look Who's Gay Now!" style of news
that plagues conventional outlets (well, at least entertainment news).

That being said, I don't mean to take away from Randi's personal decision to
come out and the hardships he had to endure for the last 70 years. This
comment is my own little part of the "murmur of acceptance" he expected and I
hope that he would appreciate me asking (as an honest question for the purpose
of social insight), why did you, as an HN reader find this newsworthy?

~~~
jackowayed
Even if HN might be past the point where anyone would care (I wouldn't count
on the % being as good as you'd hope), _society_ isn't, so it's still
interesting that he's one more person coming out and helping the general
public realize that homosexuality is common and that plenty of "great" people
are gay.

------
swombat
_Fatal error: Non-static method (null)::Q() cannot be called statically in
/home/jamesran/public_html/site/libraries/joomla/utilities/simplexml.php on
line 607_

That's a pretty serious thing to admit in public. He uses Joomla. PHP. Damn.
Another idol crumbles.

------
kschua
This surprised the hell out of me and now his choice of work makes sense to
me.

Born in that period and being promised hell after death for being gay must
have triggered a whole lot rationalizing process in him which definitely
helped made him a crusader against the paranormal and brought logic and
exposed so many of the hoaxes.

If only Alan Turing didn't commit suicide.... sigh

------
whatusername
On a related note - the Milk film that he references is fantastic. Possibly it
was because I saw it knowing _nothing_ about the story (I've got no idea about
SF/gay politics) and so it was all new to me. Well worth watching.

------
azakus
Good for him. It's sad that he felt he had to wait this long.

~~~
fnid2
I agree. I also find it interesting that someone hiding something so big about
himself was so interested in exposing other people's secrets.

~~~
wisty
Unless he claimed to be straight (and tried to rip people off with "going
straight" seminars), it's not an issue. He wasn't exposing secrets. He was
exposing deliberate deceptions which were used to manipulate other people into
changing their behavior and beliefs.

He claims that miracle workers should put their claims up against a rigorous
test. Fair enough. I wouldn't care if he was secretly (say) a Buddhist, as
long as he didn't claim he (or anyone else) could work miracles. Faith in a
higher power has a wonderful placebo effect - it's empirical. It doesn't mean
you have to rationally accept it.

~~~
fnid2
I don't think it is an issue -- more like a plot twist.

~~~
stretchwithme
one more illusion dismissed

------
najirama
Who cares?

Does his sexuality erase or amplify the work he has done? _No._

Let's move on.

~~~
mikecane
It's important for him to mention in that he is 81 years old and is probably
contemplating a shorter future than any of us. It's a good thing for him to
tell everyone rather than have it wind up in post-mortem articles that make it
out to be some dark secret that could be used to cast his life's work in a bad
light.

~~~
raganwald
I agree with your suggestion that he ought to have written this post. I also
suggest that there are many types of blog posts that ought to be written. That
doesn't mean they ought to be on the front page of Hacker News.

~~~
mikecane
People voted to put it there. I've submitted things that people haven't voted
on at all, which surprised me, but that's how it goes. Some things get votes,
some things don't.

------
mikecane
OK, this surprises me. Rock Hudson was shocking. So was George Takei. Right,
so who else from my 1960s childhood will announce? Just end the damned
suspense. Statute of limitations and all that. And it's a new age too.

~~~
mikecane
OK, I don't see why this got downvoted unless you misunderstood. If you grew
up in the 1960s -- which I did -- there was _no_ mention of homosexuality at
all in the general culture and especially not to us kids. So it's naturally
surprising to wind up in adulthood and to see who has been gay all along.

Anyone who thinks there is any hint of disapproval in this should go read two
of my other posts elsewhere: [http://mikecane.wordpress.com/2006/11/18/the-
homo-fag-queer-...](http://mikecane.wordpress.com/2006/11/18/the-homo-fag-
queer-we-all-owe/) [http://mikecane.wordpress.com/2006/11/17/that-funny-that-
nas...](http://mikecane.wordpress.com/2006/11/17/that-funny-that-nasty-that-
charming-man/)

And for those who dismiss what Randi did -- it was important for _him_.

------
tokenadult
This is not at all surprising to me, as someone who has been subscribing to
the magazine that includes his column for years. As he points out, the
connection between his personal life and his work is primarily that he desires
people to apply rationality to their decisions about how they view other
people's choices in their personal lives. He belongs to a generation with such
different experiences that he may have been habituated to staying "in the
closet" long after when he needed to.

------
greycolumbus
This is incredibly surprising. Whatever the case, I wish the man the best of
luck; this can't go over well what with all of the combative kooks out there.

------
_pius
Strangely, this is the first article about or by Randi that I've seen on
Hacker News. I'd never heard of him until now.

------
sabat
Skeptics have debunked his claim.

~~~
gojomo
Can they collect $1 million if they prove Randi is heterosexual?

~~~
eru
No.

------
GrandMasterBirt
To be honest when someone working on wall street commodities market floor can
come out as gay, THEN I will accept that the culture finally accepted gays.

My friend has to pretend that he is straight and tell stories of him and his
gf, because if found out that he was gay, not only would be lose most
business, his life would be put through hell.

Congrats Randi!

~~~
eru
Professional footballers in Germany (soccer players for you Americans) also
still have to be straight for social reasons.

Contrast that with a gay mayor in Berlin and a gay foreign minister.

