This weekend, apparently a slow news weekend, the big story on the internet seems to be that Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe came out during an interview with famed interviewer Sir Michael Parkinson.
I am not sure why this is news. I can honestly say that I have never given Ian Thorpe's sexuality any thought whatsoever. His preferences in a mate-for-life matters as much to my life as the choice of the person currently in line in a grocery store in Sofia, Bulgaria.
People's mates-for-life preferences matter only to the people involved. I am not involved with Ian Thorpe in any way whatsoever. I have never met him; to the best of my knowledge our paths have never crossed; and the chances that I will meet him or cross paths in any significant way are slim to none.
The idea that someone coming out is news is yet another example of how far we still need to go to be the perfect society we all think we are anyway. If we all firmly believe that what a person does in their own homes, behind closed doors, with another consenting adult doesn't matter, then we have to stop making it matter.
Let me repeat that, because it's important: For it not to matter, we have to stop making it matter. That means we have to stop asking about it. We, as a society, have to stop making other people's lifestyle choices news. It's not news! It's gossip, and it's not even gossip disguised as news; it's plain and simple gossip, and most often malicious gossip at that.
I never once wondered about Ian Thorpe's sexuality. I never once wondered about the sexuality of the person in line at the grocery store in Sofia either. It doesn't matter. And now that I have said my piece, I am going back to making it not matter. By not saying another word about it.
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