National Coming Out Week celebrates sexual diversity through
campus voices
This week (Oct. 8-14) is National Coming Out Week, at UCLA and
throughout the country, and there are a lot of lessons to be
learned.
In the past at UCLA, the Daily Bruin’s coverage of lesbian, gay
and bisexual (LGB) communities on campus has been dismally
inadequate, if not virtually invisible. Because a newspaper’s role
is to reflect within its pages the communities it serves, it’s time
for a change. It’s time for us to learn a lesson about reporting on
communities.
Coming Out Week commemorates more than just coming out of the
closet, although that’s part of it. On a grander scale, Coming Out
Week means coming out with the issues that don’t always get
adequate coverage in the mainstream media. For members of the
lesbian, gay and bisexual communities, it means coming out in
numbers to educate and increase awareness and coming out to be
counted to provide positive role models for people who need
them.
To recognize Coming Out Week and reassert The Bruin’s pledge to
improve our coverage of the lesbian, gay and bisexual communities,
the Viewpoint section will devote much of its space this week to
publishing coming out stories and other issues that pertain to the
lesbian, gay and bisexual communities within and beyond UCLA’s
borders  the military’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy,
domestic partnership and nonspousal benefits issues, on campus
organizations, etc..
In many ways, however, the fact that Coming Out Week lasts for
just a week is problematic. We must use this week as a starting
point for the future, to insist that awareness doesn’t end with the
conclusion of the week’s activities, within the pages of The Bruin,
on campus or anywhere.
Coming Out Week is scheduled to last for only a week, but it’s a
beginning, and a strong one at that.
In today’s issue of The Bruin, you’ll read a guest column from a
UCLA student and sergeant in the Army Reserves who came out as a
gay man in the military for the first time today. When he submitted
his column to Viewpoint last week, he knew that by coming out
publicly, with the military’s current stance on gays in the
military, he risked getting discharged from the Army.
His decision to come out shouldn’t have involved a risk at
all.
Everyone deserves the right to come out in a non-threatening,
safe environment. The Daily Bruin supports that right, and we
should all support that right. That includes the military, and that
includes UCLA’s university-funded ROTC program, which under current
policy prevents gays from being open about their sexuality.
And despite the inroads that have been made to provide
legislation to protect that right, we have a long way left to go.
There’s still a lot at stake.
But that’s exactly why National Coming Out Week and events like
it are so important  they increase awareness and they effect
change.
Keep your eyes open this week. There’s a lot going on. Go to the
National Coming Out Day Out & Proud Rally on Tuesday at noon.
Go to the Domestic Partnership Rally at noon Wednesday, or the ROTC
Discrimination Rally at noon Thursday. Maybe you’ll learn a lesson
or two.