Kevin Spacey, gay pariah?

To say I am disappointed in Kevin Spacey would be an understatement. Damned angry would be more appropriate. Actor Anthony Rapp's bombshell announcement yesterday certainly raised eyebrows everywhere in the gay community.

Why? It's been a pretty open secret for decades that Spacey has played for our team even if he has refused to acknowledge it. He has, for years when asked if he was gay, hemmed and hawed saying he has known the love of men and women.

Fine, his own sexuality is his own business.

My disappointment runs double. Yes, yesterday Spacey publicly apologized for his transgression--those he said he does not remember doing. And then today, Spacey publicly came out as a gay man. My question is this: Why did it take allegations of sexual misconduct to force him to come clean?

Yes, I am disappointed that he hit on a (then) 14-year old Rapp. Creepy, yes, and depending on what occurred, criminal even. If the allegations are true, and it seems they are, I am also disappointed that Spacey lacked the character to know better--drunk or not, as he claimed--to come unto a minor.

Lastly, in the past, the gay community has been ecstatic to welcome celebrities into the family, if you will. But why in the hell would we have any desire to accept Spacey while he has this hanging over his head?

I can just hear Pat Robertson, all giddy saying, "see, I told you so!" Every fundie out there who has claimed gays cannot be trusted around our kids have now a very visible face to use as ammunition against us.

I wish there could have been a way this news could have broken more quietly, but the current "me too" movement has made that harder, Our community has always been quick to point out that unhealthy sexual relationships between adults and minors have statistically rested on the shoulders of the heterosexual community, not ours. 

And that still is true. 

Spacey has made that a little harder to argue. He's just one man, but it takes just one to taint the argument for those looking with a closed mind.

But, I guess if we're going to be true to our convictions, we must own up to our own as well, yet I am also wont to sweep such allegations under the rug. To end these kinds of behaviors, we must, as Rapp said today, "shine a light on the problem." 

Dammit, I hate having ethics sometimes--and damn you, Kevin Spacey.