The Appropriate Place for Soap Boxes

Today being Sunday, you can easily guess what I was going to be doing. That's right -- reading "Parade" magazine!

I am a bizarrely big fan of "Parade" magazine. Numerous people I know have made very disdainful comments about it, to which I respond that they cover certain topics succinctly that a part of their audience will never know anything about unless they read it in "Parade".

Plus, there are comics. And that creepy smart woman.

And celebrity gossip. Which brings me to my point. (Did you know I had one?)

Today, the last question in "Walter Scott's Personality Parade" concerned a supposed celebrity named Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I am merely taking their word that this is a famous person, because I'd never heard of him. (This is, however, frequently the case with the "celebrities" covered in this particular column.)

The inquiry included three questions. What was he up to? Does he still act? And... Is he gay?

The first two got answered. And then, in what I find a baffling, if well intentioned, lack of awareness of self-identity, the answer concluded, "As for his sexuality -- or, for that matter, that of any other actor or actress -- Walter Scott [I've never seen him name himself like that!] would like to ask, now and for the record: Whose business is it? And what does it matter?"

Hmmm... Clearly, Walter Scott is trying to make a point. And it's a point I agree with, but, um, did he forget that he writes a celebrity gossip column?!? He answers people's questions about celebrity relationships all the time! I'm almost positive that there have even been answers about whether so-and-so was in relationships with men or women before. Or whether a certain dead celebrity ever came out of the closet.

So if the writer had asked if JTT dated men, would WS have answered? What if the person who was writing in had a crush on JTT? That might make it "matter" to "Gallagher (no first name given)" of Madison, Wis., in the sense anything matters in a gossip column.

Whatever one's beliefs, if you're a gossip columnist, it is not in your best interest to ever ask "Whose business is it? And what does it matter?"