This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
[Above: Harvey Milk, first openly gay public official in the U.S., on why coming out matters, in 1978. It took awhile, and Milk didn't live to see it all. But it worked.]
A fairly big story today is marred by a horrible headline.
Which only newspaper editorial writers probably care about.
Which, because it's showing up the same way in various online publications, should probably be blamed on the otherwise exemplary journalists at The Associated Press.
"South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg came out as gay Tuesday, declaring in a lengthy and personal newspaper editorial that it took him years to accept that his sexuality is just 'part of who I am.'
"Buttigieg, the first-term Democratic mayor of Indiana's fourth-largest city, said in the essay published in the South Bend Tribune that it wasn't easy for him to divulge his sexuality, in part because Midwesterners 'are instinctively private to begin with.' ..."
Mayor Buttigieg may have come out. He may be gay. He may have chosen the opinion page of his local newspaper — bless him — as the means for his announcement.
— Why coming out matters — Pete Buttigieg | For The South Bend Tribune
It was a powerful statement.
But it was not an editorial.
And editorial is the official, institutional position of a newspaper. Usually, but not always, written without a byline, because it is not presented as one person's opinion. Or life story. It's the view of the newspaper as an entity. (Even though corporations aren't people. Really.)
Now, if a newspaper ever comes out as gay — which I'm sure many people think The Salt Lake Tribune already has — that would be an editorial.
One for the ages.