Frank Bruni’s Week in Review column debuted Sunday and – surprise! – it was all about being gay in America.
The first openly gay op-ed columnist for the Gray Lady wrote a very personal essay about the strides America has made in accepting — and protecting — the rights of homosexuals. The column, written before the state of New York passed legislation recognizing same sex marriage, started with the state of gay acceptance during his college years in the mid-‘80s, and ended with his conservative father’s recent acceptance of his partner.
“Years ago he would quietly leave the room whenever my sexual orientation came up in a family conversation,” Bruni wrote. “But when he urged me to attend a Halloween party he gave for his friends last fall, he insisted I bring Tom, whom he has come to know well over the last two and a half years we’ve been together.”
At the party, Bruni continued, his dad introduced his partner as “another son.”
In the column, titled “To Know Us Is to Let Us Love,” Bruni also outlined how close to home homosexuality is for a number of proponents for same-sex marriage in the state, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city’s former top cop, William Bratton.
It was all very touching and beautifully written. Alas, the spell was quickly broken by reports of vandalism at Chicago’s Gay Pride parade: Tires on 51 floats were slashed sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
And as for the rest of the redesigned Sunday Review section: It sure does have a lot of big graphics.
