Yes, it was a rather dramatic moment on CNBC, with a columnist discussing the fact that no CEO of a major company was willing to be mentioned as gay:<a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnbc-panel-goes-awkwardly-silent-when-host-outs-apple-ceo-as-gay/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mediaite.com&#x2F;tv&#x2F;cnbc-panel-goes-awkwardly-silent-...</a>

Yep on CNBC i believe( I hate that channel,it&#x27;s just ridiculous). What was stupid is that one journalist said T.Cook was gay,others insisted he wasnt.Like &quot;noooooooooooo he&#x27;s not!&quot; multiple times.That sums up the whole NBC network for me.Frankly,nobody cared about Jobs sexual life,and he did a good job at shielding his family from the media frenzy.

Perhaps because everyone who cares&#x2F;matters already knew, there isn&#x27;t really a point in denying or hiding it anymore.A month or two ago some journalist accidentally said it on air if I remember correctly.

because it&#x27;s explained in the article...

It seems like a legit question, why down voted?

And make the &quot;Apple&quot; brand away from PRISM, NSA and others not to mention that they want to keep the &quot;cool&quot; and &quot;open&quot; words attached to the &quot;Apple&quot; brand as well.Of course with all due respect to Tim Cook which opened for the first time and will probably inspire other people.But to me everything is connected.EDIT: For those who downvoted please explain what&#x27;s wrong in this comment.

You either didn&#x27;t read the article or simply failed to understand from the article why he did it. He&#x27;s not trying to exploit anything for himself or his company but instead of the betterment of minorities.

honestly I could care less. I really just don&#x27;t care who is gay or not. I really don&#x27;t give one whit to those who think its some special event when they do.your personal life, keep it personal, its no one&#x27;s business and it certainly is not something to exploit for personal gain or to guilt another with

Why do you think he chose to come out now?

Even at my fraternity at school, a kid sent a very long heartfelt message that he was dropping because he was gay. Which was followed by a a series of messages from everyone else saying either &quot;we know, we support you unconditionally&quot; or cracking the occasional good-spirited but crass joke. He later served as an officer and was a member until graduation. While at a liberal college, it&#x27;s easy to forget the challenges people of different orientations face in many places throughout the country.

Not a recent cultural shift, but one that has been steadily making headway over a very long time. A recent tipping point, perhaps.

Where the homesexual agenda in Disney movies?I&#x27;d prefer specific examples rather than just handwavey nonsense.

I don&#x27;t have any data to back it up, but I guess it&#x27;s just companies following the trend on public opinion? They didn&#x27;t before because the majority was against it, they do now because the majority is for it. Not sure if that means taking a stand, though.

There is also the recent Android commercial as well!

There seems to have been a cultural shift in the United States as of lately. Just a few years back most companies was afraid of &quot;choosing&quot; side, and kept things pretty neutral. But look at recent Disney movies and Coca-Cola commercials. They all give the impression that from a marketing perspective it&#x27;s better to take a stand.

If there is a standard distribution of gay men and women in the population, wouldn&#x27;t that be true of any product?  Sure, it could be higher in tech fields however there is a high probability of a gay man or woman building most the products we use.

You shouldn&#x27;t assume that bigots are rational.

To be honest, I for one know very little about the important persons in &lt;enter orthogonal branch of science here&gt;, gay or not. We might all know about the terrible fate of Alan Turing, but I don&#x27;t expect non-cs people to know.(Thanks to gpvos for the correction of faith-&gt;fate. )

&gt;&gt;&gt; seeing as the entire field is built on the work of a gay man.That&#x27;s a rather inaccurate, cringe worthy and generic statement. If your saying only one person contributed to the field of computers in 2014, that&#x27;s sad.We tend to glorify individuals in the eyes of media and forget [1]others who contributed to where we are today in technology.[1] <a href="http://www.computerhope.com/people/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.computerhope.com&#x2F;people&#x2F;</a> - list of people who have contributed to computers.Edit: Thanks to oneplusone, I realised that he was speaking about Alan Turing. But why base a field on only one person regardless of sexuality. Why is sexuality the issue in the first place?

I saw a bunch of these Android pride shirts around Toronto Pride a few months back:<a href="https://www.googlestore.com/Google+Redesign/Brands/Android/Android+Pride+T-Shirt+-+Black.axd" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.googlestore.com&#x2F;Google+Redesign&#x2F;Brands&#x2F;Android&#x2F;A...</a>Quick, homophobes! Burn your Android phones!

Why should the work product of an individual be restricted only to people who agree with his choices? If someone doesn&#x27;t buy Apple products because the CEO is gay, they&#x27;re saying they don&#x27;t want to send money to people promoting a homosexual lifestyle, not that they can&#x27;t respect his work and not that they don&#x27;t appreciate it.Do you agree with all of the life choices made by every innovator throughout the centuries, many of whom were very religious and almost assuredly would&#x27;ve been anti-gay had such a movement existed in their time? It may make sense to deprive these people of money now if you disagree with them, but it doesn&#x27;t make sense to discharge all the output of their life&#x27;s work once there&#x27;s no more threat of them actually receiving direct monetary aid from your purchases, and it doesn&#x27;t make sense to denigrate the product on its own basis, independent from the behavior or ideals of the original creator. We should recognize good wherever we can find it.

If they won&#x27;t buy Apple products because the CEO is gay, they probably shouldn&#x27;t buy any computers at all, seeing as the entire field is built on the work of a gay man.

Wow. That doesn&#x27;t sound like an accident - you don&#x27;t say someone &quot;is fairly open about being gay&quot; unless you&#x27;re damn sure they are. What an unpleasant person.

It is interesting to read this. Not that I have any evidence, but I was under the impression that Apple was already more attractive to the gay community than the other companies...I would not be surprise if this will increase this section of their target market.

&gt; I think it was widely assumed that he was gayBy who, Apple fanboys? Your average person probably doesn&#x27;t even know who is Apple&#x27;s current CEO let alone that he&#x27;s gay.

I had no idea whatsoever. I&#x27;ve never seen this clip before and that was totally an accidental outed.I actually can think of one co-worker who might have some difficulty with this news today...

I think the issue was that although Tim Cook was not secretive about being gay, he had never publicly spoken about it. The CNBC guy got a lot of flak, but as many mentioned, there are several other places where Cook was identified as a gay man before that clip, so the backlash was a little unfair. It can be awkward to differentiate between public knowledge and &quot;open secrets&quot; when someone hasn&#x27;t officially come out.

&gt;There are undoubtedly many people who will no longer purchase Apple products because of thisI disagree. First, I think it was widely assumed that he was gay, and if it wasn&#x27;t, he was accidentally outed during a live TV broadcast a few months ago by a CNBC reporter [1]. Second, the people that think this way probably already avoid Apple products, as both Tim Cook and Apple have been vocal on gay rights for quite some time. Finally, the one thing that these kinds of people hate more than those that disagree with their worldview is being personally inconvenienced. If they&#x27;re already invested in the Apple ecosystem and are used to the iOS UX, they&#x27;re going to keep paying Tim Cook for a new device every year.[1] <a href="http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000288253" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;video.cnbc.com&#x2F;gallery&#x2F;?video=3000288253</a> - about one minute in

A god will give an end to these alsoTime does appear to be healing cultural wounds, even if not quickly enough.

The passage of time doesn&#x27;t &quot;fix&quot; deeply rooted beliefs. However, over time, role models will do things to change those beliefs.

I feel there is a big difference between gay equality and what a lot of young men feel like is a shrill feminism that seems to be much more about axe grinding, political correctness, censorship, and entitlements than any sort of drive towards a true equality. After you&#x27;ve been called a potential rapist several times in an academic or workplace setting just for your gender, you stop sympathizing with the modern feminist movement.I think purposely conflating gay rights and feminism is more than a little disingenuous. LGBT movements empower both genders, feminism empowers only one.I think its very possible to be socially progressive in thought but not be a cheerleader for the modern feminist agenda. These things don&#x27;t necessarily contradict each other.

Don&#x27;t overestimate the progressiveness of young men. Look at how terrible so many of the HN comments are whenever there&#x27;s a submission relating in any way to women.

If some people don&#x27;t want to buy Apple products because of this, that would be a foolish choice. What may be worse than that would be some people trying to color everything Apple makes with this background and attempting to denigrate the products with &quot;jokes&quot; that aren&#x27;t.

Far too many need to believe that people won&#x27;t buy the products because of his sexuality to bolster their own feelings of superiority than would actually not buy the products. Looking the anti-religious zealotry within this thread is evident of that, far too many just believe the worst in others because they are themselves too bigoted&#x2F;closeminded to think otherwise.

Where are you getting &quot;There are undoubtedly many people who will no longer purchase Apple products because of this, and I don&#x27;t know society can fix this with anything but time.&quot; from ?

Being in such a progressive community (i.e. young nerdy people), it&#x27;s easy to forget that this is an enormous deal for some people. A friend of mine recently came out as transgender and the general response was &quot;oh, cool, good for you&quot;. It&#x27;s hard to fathom what it&#x27;s like for people who aren&#x27;t in such a supportive environment.There are undoubtedly many people who will no longer purchase Apple products because of this, and I don&#x27;t know society can fix this with anything but time.

I think that&#x27;s a very real future, and speaking out in this way only helps to make that a reality sooner.

I sorta agree, but I think the core paragraph explains his motivations better:[I]f hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.Announcing that you&#x27;re straight is never going to be controversial, but we&#x27;re currently in a cultural stage where announcing things like this continues to normalize the reality of diverse types of sexuality and, ironically, over time that should make it less of a big or negative deal to some people.

We would all like for that to be the case.  Unfortunately, as long as members of the GLBT community have to worry about being physically attacked, even in &quot;safe&quot; places like San Francisco and other progressive cities, it&#x27;s important for people who are in a position to be able to speak out safely to do so.

We&#x27;re in a transition period, and rapidly heading towards your ideal. We&#x27;re getting there, and this is a necessary step. Be happy it&#x27;s happening :)

&gt; banging their wife...or husbands, but that&#x27;s the least of your problems.

I think the Sean Parker wedding was notable because of its extravagance and the somewhat douchey behavior he showed in its staging and execution.But, I agre otherwise with your point.

What? I hear about straight male CEO&#x27;s relationships all the freaking time, probably more than I hear anything else about them.Here&#x27;s just one example:
<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/16/business/la-fi-0416-parker-wedding-20130416" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;articles.latimes.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;apr&#x2F;16&#x2F;business&#x2F;la-fi-0416-...</a>Do you really need a list?This is important because gay people have not been allowed representation or public acknowledgement. Until this month there were 0 openly gay CEOs but hundreds of openly straight CEOs in the public eye.Well done Tim Cook, and my personal thanks.

It&#x27;s important for mere visibility and representation of MOGAI people in general. Everyone is generally assumed to be heterosexual by default, so people who are het don&#x27;t need to make public announcements about it.

&gt; I wish we lived in a society where people weren&#x27;t pressured into &quot;publically acknowledge&quot; their sexual orientationAs someone who has come out, I&#x27;d like to note that I was never &quot;pressured&quot; into publicly acknowledging my sexuality. In fact, the general message from the wider culture was &quot;please STFU and don&#x27;t talk about it&quot;.No, I looked at history, saw that coming out was an important and useful thing I could do to contribute to the movement aimed at getting equal rights for gay people and that formed part of a pretty rational decision to do so.The lies and bigotry aimed at gay people thrived for so long precisely because nobody knew any gay people. That&#x27;s exactly why coming out was (and still is) necessary. One of the reasons the gay rights movement has been so spectacularly successful over the last 40+ years is because the lives of actual gay people is a living testament to the falseness of the vicious stereotypes spread by homophobic pricks.You don&#x27;t see straight people coming out because they don&#x27;t need to. Gay people came out because the alternative is persecution, mixed with a whole lot of personal misery.

I wish we lived in a society where people weren&#x27;t pressured into &quot;publically acknowledge&quot; their sexual orientation just because it&#x27;s different than the norm. You don&#x27;t see heterosexual CEOs publically acknowledging they are banging their wife, why should it be different for other sexual orientations? Just let everyone be.

You subscription to Out magazine must have lapsed. He was their #1 most powerful gay man or woman in American last year:<a href="http://www.out.com/out-exclusives/power-50/2013/04/10/power-list-2013?page=0,4" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.out.com&#x2F;out-exclusives&#x2F;power-50&#x2F;2013&#x2F;04&#x2F;10&#x2F;power-...</a>I think it was one of those things where everyone knew it, but no one talked about it because it just wasn&#x27;t that big a deal.

While everyone already knew, the act of public announcement is one of great meaning and catharsis. Coming out is an important event for a gay person, and for a prominent person such as Tim Cook, for our society as well. As an ally, congratulations for having the courage to be who you are.

Well, shareholders may fear that some conservative consumers will want to boycott Apple because of that announce. Not completely illogical.Or they think that other shareholders will think that and lead to a drop in the share value.

The Federal Reserve voted yesterday to end quantitative easing (QE3). i.e. They will no longer be buying up instruments to prop up the economy.<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/10/29/end-of-qe3-means-fed-statement-finally-shrinks/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.wsj.com&#x2F;economics&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;29&#x2F;end-of-qe3-means-f...</a>

That would value a CEO&#x27;s sexuality at 6 billion dollars. I sincerely hope that has nothing to do with this news.

Asked his prediction on what the stock market would do, J.P. Morgan responded: &quot;It will fluctuate&quot;.

&lt;sarcasm&gt;Because as we all know, financial markets are so good at valuing something correctly.&lt;&#x2F;sarcasm&gt; Cough, CDOs, cough.

It&#x27;s a shame that this is so exceptional.

Way to go, Tim! It&#x27;s a shame that he had to &#x27;come out&#x27;, but I hope that being the CEO of one of the world&#x27;s biggest companies will help the LGBT cause.

Never expected that! but still lot of respect for him.. it takes lot of guts to speak up being the CEO of the worlds biggest company!..

It got a reasonable amount of attention, but I think a lot of journalists (correctly, IMO) felt that speculating on someone&#x27;s sexuality where they hadn&#x27;t talked about it publicly was a bit inappropriate.

Felix Salmon outed it on the very day of Tim Cook&#x27;s appointment as the CEO.I&#x27;m surprised that a story that was on Techmeme at that time, did not get broader attention, until now.<a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/08/25/dont-ignore-tim-cooks-sexuality/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.reuters.com&#x2F;felix-salmon&#x2F;2011&#x2F;08&#x2F;25&#x2F;dont-ignore...</a>

&gt;&gt; there was no need to come out to the press about itSure there was. Here&#x27;s Cook on why it was worth caming out to the press about it:&quot;So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.&quot;

It doesn&#x27;t matter to you but it&#x27;s mattered to others on HN and will likewise to others around the world. He explains why quite clearly in the article.

It doesn&#x27;t matter... depending on what social circles you&#x27;re part of, and&#x2F;or where you live. That&#x27;s a crucial distinction.I think it&#x27;s very understandable to underestimate the degree of suffering involved, and how much this can be improved over time through publicly voiced support, especially when it comes from influential figures.Many of us make this mistake in regards to women or ethnic minorities too. And those of us who are good looking do it to those who are less pretty, and those who us who have always been popular do this to the unpopular.The best kind of empathy, I believe, concerns not just your feelings toward others, but also the context that these others are in.

&gt;&gt;&gt; it didn&#x27;t trigger anything in my brain that thought it mattered either wayThis. It doesn&#x27;t matter at all. Its great that people are embracing their sexuality, but there was no need to come out to the press about it. It doesn&#x27;t change the way I see Apple as a company or even Tim Cook. He is still the same person before and after this article.

Yeah at first I though it was another stunt for Apple because seriously how is his sexual orientation is important? Then I though how actually we still need public figure like him, that there&#x27;s still way too much people who doesn&#x27;t want to accept other sexual orientations.Let&#x27;s hope that this will help many more people understands that there&#x27;s nothing abnormal with having another sexual orientation.

Strangely enough I&#x27;d see pictures of him at some gay pride thing and it never even occurred to me he might be gay. I think, more accurately, it didn&#x27;t trigger anything in my brain that thought it mattered either way. Obviously this is the way it should be!It seems like Tim Cook isn&#x27;t under any pressure to publicly announce this, so it seems he&#x27;s doing it as a way of leveraging his position to help others who are experiencing adversity. Some will say this is a stunt for Apple, and no doubt it does draw attention to Apple in a way, but I think you&#x27;d have to be pretty cynical to say that this is anything more nefarious than an admirable gesture.

I never noticed the mention of &#x27;God&#x27; and had to re-read it.

That caught my eye also, but his support of that thesis was quite nice.

I recently read an article in English talking about homophobia being widespread in Russia &quot;despite the Russians having lived through the progressive social experiment of communism&quot;.Calling it a &quot;progressive social experiment&quot; gives it far more forgiveness than it deserves in my opinion...From which I conclude that it&#x27;s easy to forgive when we basically like the idea&#x2F;movement&#x2F;etc., and easy to see undeserved forgiveness when we basically dislike it.

I would agree with you but only when you look at religion from a broad perspective. If you actually speak to people who are religious you will quickly find that there are a lot of things they don&#x27;t believe or follow in their religion. Eventually religions catch up, although that takes too long (similar to how laws often take too long to catch up to what most people do and think should be legal).I think the key is that the &#x27;fundamental&#x27; people you often hear about that think &#x27;homosexuality is an abomination&#x27; are a small minority. The people who are fine with it usually aren&#x27;t seen on the news because their opinion isn&#x27;t inflammatory.

That jarred me too.I recently spoke to some gay religious people and it struck me as very odd. I&#x27;m biased, of course. I tend to think religion gets far more forgiveness than it deserves in a huge number of contexts. It was interesting though, in a bunch of ways.When I hear a statement like this it makes me think of Africans converting to Mormonism or Jews joining European far right movements. I realize that there are perspectives through which this is not contradictory. Mormonism had views of Africans that only lagged behind mainstream opinions by a decade or two. The far right parties are more interested in Islam or African migration these days…Still, I can&#x27;t help it. It give me the heebie jeebies.

&gt;Indeed, the mark of a well thought out and carefully crafted message that&#x27;s not just personal, but also about necessary PR.
If that&#x27;s what it takes to get people on-board this generation, I don&#x27;t mind. But I hope lines like that can be omitted one day. Doesn&#x27;t it just look incredibly silly?Maybe he didn&#x27;t want to omit it. Maybe it&#x27;s not PR, but instead his actual feelings. Maybe he is religious. So, it&#x27;s all cool and all that he&#x27;s gay (which it is), but he mentions God and now you&#x27;re all &quot;Why can&#x27;t he just keep that to himself?&quot;That seems a little hypocritical to me.

Indeed, the mark of a well thought out and carefully crafted message that&#x27;s not just personal, but also about necessary PR.If that&#x27;s what it takes to get people on-board this generation, I don&#x27;t mind. But I hope lines like that can be omitted one day. Doesn&#x27;t it just look incredibly silly?

Gay people aren&#x27;t stereotypes who fit into one mold. I used to live next to a gay couple who were the among most conservative people I&#x27;ve ever met. I think that&#x27;s the exact point of the sentence, to say &quot;we&#x27;re not all the same; it&#x27;s just one thing about me&quot; without sounding like an angsty teenager.That said, it wasn&#x27;t exactly a secret that Tim Cook is gay. Though it was always handled as more of a &quot;this is something that can inform your understanding of him as a business leader&quot; as opposed to &quot;omg it&#x27;s a scandal! He&#x27;s gay and running the biggest company in the world!&quot; His sexuality is probably a bigger deal among Alabama boosters than the tech community though.

An odd thing to slip in? He is, as far as I&#x27;ve gathered, a deeply religious gay man. If his point is to imply those things are not at odds, then I don&#x27;t think this sentence&#x27;s inclusion is odd at all.

He&#x27;s a religious man. It wasn&#x27;t &quot;slipped in&quot;. Read the following sentences. Brilliant.

&quot;Thank God it&#x27;s not raining&quot; is completely different from saying &quot;... the greatest gifts God has given me.&quot;The first is just a frivolous small talk type comment. Non-religious people would say this. It&#x27;s part of the common US vocabulary. The second is much more serious, and the speaker is actually thanking God for how he is. A non-religious person would never say it.Religious people do this type of thing all the time in the US. Just look at 1 example- sports. The amount of American pro-athletes who are religious is astounding. Many athletes will seriously thank God after doing something well in a sporting event.I&#x27;m very very anti-theist and I still have a lot of Christians on my Facebook, and some of them are constantly thanking God or praising Jesus for some good thing that happened in their life.The amount of cars that have religious stickers on them is incredible. Crosses, the Jesus fish, some Biblical reference, a Christian brand, etc- you see them constantly. Maybe it&#x27;s not like that in the Bay Area, but that is an exception. I live in Germany now and I&#x27;ve counted a total of TWO cars in 2 years that had any kind of Religious sticker.So, yeah, Christianity is everywhere in the US. I pray for the day that this is not true.

To me it came across as purely figurative. IMHO the usual phrases like &quot;thank God it&#x27;s not raining&quot; are pretty much detached from the religious context.Is it different in US?

And is Southern as well - From Alabama. Big church influence down there.

I have a hard time thinking of anyone as Christian if they ignore the basic tenants of what the Bible says. Homosexuality is very clearly spelled out as wrong. So are plenty of other things of course and the Bible doesn&#x27;t specify homosexual behavior as any more or less wrong than any other sinful act. Christians shouldn&#x27;t be treating homosexuals any different than anyone else, but that includes letting people know that God views that behavior as sin.

And there are members of the Church who experience same-sex attraction but strive for a life of chastity, who have a powerful message for those who long to &quot;move beyond the confines of the homosexual label to a more complete identity in Christ.&quot;See, for example, Tina&#x27;s, Jonah&#x27;s and Blake&#x27;s testimonies:<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA4gpJUpvpc" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=cA4gpJUpvpc</a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbAqzGsjl30" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=PbAqzGsjl30</a>Those videos are featured by the Courage apostolate:<a href="http://couragerc.org/courage/#testimonies" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;couragerc.org&#x2F;courage&#x2F;#testimonies</a>This comment is not intended to be inflammatory; my intention is simply to share an alternate perspective.

Tim Cook is a Christian. This is a message to the Church.

I&#x27;ve never come across a poll that asks, &quot;Which of these do you consider worst: being gay, black, female, or atheist?&quot; but I doubt the answer to a question like that would be useful anyway.I&#x27;m a little amused by you guys trying to work out all the &quot;PR&quot; angles Cook could be trying to exploit by mentioning his faith without even considering that it&#x27;s is a genuinely important part of who he is.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. He&#x27;s a &quot;son of the South&quot; and a self-described religious man, so this makes sense.But this also makes sense from a PR perspective because according to American political polls being an atheist is &quot;worse&quot; than being black, gay, a women, etc. It&#x27;s apparently largely unforgivable to be godless.So, some may be surprised to learn he&#x27;s gay, but then take some solace in the fact that he still praises the same god they do. In a way this is the perfect way to assuage the exact audience this revelation might offend because, you know, God loves all his children.This really won&#x27;t be a big deal. Some extreme groups will make some noise, but that&#x27;s about it. I was in the Marine Corps when they repealed Don&#x27;t Ask, Don&#x27;t Tell. Everyone thought it&#x27;d be a big deal. They repealed it...nobody cared.

Not particularly. Religious people frame things in religious terms.I&#x27;m an atheist and a gay man. I think being gay is a good thing in my life. That is to say, if there were a pill I could take that would turn me straight, I wouldn&#x27;t take it.Despite harassment and discrimination (which still happens, even in happy tolerant cities like London—most recent incident, 3 weeks ago, someone shouting &quot;queers!&quot; out of the window while I was walking down the street late at night holding hands with a guy), the point is that in spite of huge amounts of cultural and religious programming to the opposite, a lot of gay people have found themselves embracing their sexuality and considering it not just a not-bad thing but an actively good thing in their life.That&#x27;s what Cook is getting at: that sentiment can be expressed in secular terms (like I just have) or in religious terms.

In America you can come out as gay but perhaps not yet as atheist.

Er, why? Because it conflicts with other people&#x27;s opinions of what God values? Hate to say this, but religious people say things of the general form &quot;I consider X among the greatest gifts God has given me&quot; (or something with similar meaning) where X conflicts with the view of God&#x27;s priorities held by some other religious people all the time.

I admit I am enjoying watching people try to wrap their heads around the idea that a gay techie ceo could be religious.The world has a wide range of people, and they don&#x27;t fit into neat little boxes.

The fact that various kinds of people will consider it an odd thing to say is probably just the reason why Cook went out of his way to say it.

Am I the only one that always finds it funny when athiests (myself included) use the name of a religious deity when making an exclamation?That being said, it is really difficult for most people to get past the cognitive dissonance that comes from being mass-denied &quot;salvation&quot; by the followers of a religion (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism) for being a homosexual, and yet, still believing in the invisible man in the sky that supposedly dictated these edicts.Disclosure: I&#x27;m LGBTQ, athiest, and will defend to the death the right for anyone to believe in things I do not.

I hate to &quot;me too&quot; this comment, but I agree. I don&#x27;t even tell people I&#x27;m an atheist anymore so as not to be associated.Someone in the thread actually claimed this:&gt; I am also an atheist which, today, in the US, is worst than being gay in some circles.They&#x27;re not even remotely close in terms of persecution. And I use that word lightly when referring to the modern atheist.

Is it really so hard to believe that he might just be religious?Jesus Christ, atheists are the worst (as can be seen here in this thread). And I say that as an atheist …

it might be because he won&#x27;t reproduce?

I wonder how carefully crafted this line was:<pre><code> ... I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.
</code></pre>
It seems a particularly odd thing to slip in, on so many levels.

I understand that point. The impact of something such as this on your shaping is incommensurable; I can only imagine how much being part of a minority (particularly, one which is prejudiced, mocked and even attacked) shaped his way of understanding and appreciating difference.However, I can&#x27;t agree with putting it in &quot;that&quot; way (&quot;among the greatest gifts God has given me&quot;). Even taking into account how much such a thing will shape a person, it seems exaggerated (to me). It sounds like he is who (and where) he is because of his sexual orientation. He was, however, born in a developed (and rich country); he had food, parents and housing; he also education (and a good one, in great schools) and the privilege of working at IBM and Apple.

That&#x27;s the entire point being made here though - being straight isn&#x27;t a particularly large challenge in today&#x27;s society.  What Tim is saying here, is that much of his empathy, and ability to appreciate minorities, and the oppressed, derives directly from being a member of a heretofore marginalized group.  And, his ability to appreciate the importance of diversity, and to truly understand Dr. King and his message, is a result of that, &quot;gift from god.&quot;

Yeah, if you changed the statement to refer to something with entirely different context and history, it sure would be different.

So are you&#x27;re saying that expressing the Christian view that God intends for men and women to only have sexual relationships within [a heterosexual] marriage, that such marriage should be the basis under which children are raised, that marriage should be a singular unending union, expressing such things won&#x27;t cause one to be vilified, on HN say?The evidence seems to be against you.

You mean like the bits about the &quot;great gift&quot; of holy matrimony and God&#x27;s intention &quot;man and wife&quot; to be joined &quot;as one flesh&quot; that crop up at basically every single Christian wedding?

&quot;(...) and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me&quot;. I can only imagine the reactions if the same was said by a heterosexual person, about heterosexual orientation... :)

Tim Cook is 53. Are you suggesting there&#x27;s some sort of swell change that occurred in 5 years?

I don&#x27;t share Eich&#x27;s views, but he&#x27;s 58 - the cultural concepts that made it difficult for Tim Cook to be public about his sexuality may be the same thing that makes Eich against gay marriage.Edit: I can&#x27;t comment due to rate limits, but a poster below hasn&#x27;t read what I wrote above and is suggesting I am saying the men grew up in different times. I am suggesting the exact opposite: they grew up in the SAME period&#x2F;culture.

&gt; Being opposed to gay marriage does not imply being against homosexuals.How is that even possible? How is enforcing legal restrictions against a minority class of people not inherently discriminatory?

Being opposed to gay marriage does not imply being against homosexuals. But they presumably don&#x27;t see eye to eye on the subject of gay marriage.

I guess Tim Cook and Brendan Eich don&#x27;t see eye to eye on some issues.

Or where such announcements aren&#x27;t even necessary...

In that world, funnily enough, there wouldn&#x27;t be such announcements.On this level both extremes are similar :)

That&#x27;s a pretty offensive accusation.Like Cook points out, the US is still country in which gay people are subject to life-altering discrimination all the time. Most other countries are even worse.I suspect you&#x27;re overestimating how accepted homosexuality is outside of your bubble.

We&#x27;ll first have to pass from the stage were announcement like this are not that courageous (sure might annoy some BS far right minority who nobody cares about), and are actually the in vogue thing to say for kudos and hi-fives.Which I think is were we are now.The people who really had the guts, &quot;came out&quot; when it really mattered and made a difference, back in the seventies and eighties.

I&#x27;d like a world where announcements like this are considered utterly mundane.

It&#x27;s curious how some people downvote but won&#x27;t comment.It&#x27;s almost as if they&#x27;d rather hide their prejudices, than have their prejudices be brought to light.

Probably because you bring Wikileaks to an unrelated Apple article. There is a time and a place for discussing the failings of the world&#x27;s governments. A thread discussing a CEO who is able to come out of the closet is not that time or place.

Huh!What reason would you have to find even this observation 
disagreeable?

One has to wonder how - in this world filled with anonymity enabling services like Tor or even Pastebin - it is still possible to hide a secret, out in the open.This is old news. Felix Salmon spelled it out in no uncertain terms when Mr.Cook was first named CEO, in 2011. [1]The best place to hide something - not that Mr.Cook himself wanted his sexuality hidden; he merely did not want it to grab all the attention, away from Apple - is still in plain sight.[2]This also begs the question, if enough vested interests or powerful people want something not to be talked about, is the fact still worthy of its truth value?This applies to the trivial case at hand - of Mr. Cook&#x27;s sexuality - as it does to the countless secrets of great gravity that were largely ignored - concerning at least a dozen nations not including the U.S. - that Wikileaks exposed.[1] Don’t ignore Tim Cook’s sexuality<a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/08/25/dont-ignore-tim-cooks-sexuality/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.reuters.com&#x2F;felix-salmon&#x2F;2011&#x2F;08&#x2F;25&#x2F;dont-ignore...</a>[2] The Purloined Letter<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purloined_Letter#Plot_summary" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Purloined_Letter#Plot_summa...</a>

Performing a sexual act is a conscious behavior, wilfully chosen by the participants (except in cases of rape, which is not relevant to this discussion). Law is meant to regulate behaviors. It&#x27;s valid to make sexual acts illegal. It doesn&#x27;t violate non-discrimination rights because wilful participation by any person is just as illegal as participation by any other person. Laws that say &quot;this is legal for people with this involuntary attribute but illegal for people with a different involuntary attribute&quot; are discriminatory. If they say &quot;sexual activity with a person of the same sex is illegal&quot;, it&#x27;s equally illegal for everyone, regardless of that person&#x27;s unchangeable, involuntarily physical attributes. Saying some people can do something (like &quot;only white people can engage in sexual activity with a person of the same sex&quot;) while others can&#x27;t is discriminatory. Making something illegal for everyone is not. It&#x27;s just normal lawmaking.We may disagree with Singapore and think that most sexual acts shouldn&#x27;t be illegal. But how can we go around saying law can&#x27;t regulate behavior? This is one of my big problems with the gay &quot;rights&quot; lobby of today -- they&#x27;re trying to make it illegal to legislate basically anything. If you disagree with the law, change the law, don&#x27;t codify sweeping generalizations that set a precedent of &quot;I was born this way and I can&#x27;t control it&quot; as an excuse for any illegal behavior.Only the most basic principles are protected by things like the American Bill of Rights, and the specific behavior must be tested by the courts to see if it conforms to the principles enshrined as fundamental rights.

Tim Cook faces 2 years in jail in Singapore if he has activity even in a private room.Three days ago, the Court of Appeal has just judged the law was conform to the constitution, because everyone is guaranteed equal rights no matter their sex, race or religion, and this doesn&#x27;t include sexuality.The Straits Times: <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/court-appeal-rules-section-377a-criminalises-sex-between-men-const" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.straitstimes.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;singapore&#x2F;courts-crime&#x2F;stor...</a>The original judgement: <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1348608/singapore-judgment-for-377a-29-10-14.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;s3.amazonaws.com&#x2F;s3.documentcloud.org&#x2F;documents&#x2F;1348...</a>

Certainly Article 377 is bad and so was the Supreme Court judgement (&quot;[only] 200 people&quot; being the nadir, see <a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article/The-Unbearable-Wrongness-Of-Koushal-vs-Naz/288823" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.outlookindia.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;The-Unbearable-Wrongness...</a>), but given that people still have issues with religious, caste, same-gotra, etc marriage, might not India have to tackle those first?

This made me well up inside. Being from a country that considers homosexuality to be illegal (India) and having a close friend who left that country as well as his religion (Islam) solely due to being gay, I applaud this man&#x27;s spirit.
It is not only the government that must accept equality of different ways, but so must society. Religion, culture and political climates are no reason to deny fundamental human freedoms - the right to have consensual sex with the people of your choice being one of them. Amazing that the one thing that we hold up as a pinnacle of political theory - democracy - is the one that keeps many minorities from exercising their rights. I am sure, for example, that a referendum on Article 377 would fail in most small Indian towns. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
I hope that prominent Indians take this up as well (there are at least a couple of Bollywood directors who are rumoured to be gay as well as at least one business tycoon) and come out of the closet.

I actually think he makes a reasonable point, if you read his last sentence carefully.Realistically, it doesn&#x27;t make much sense to be &quot;proud&quot; of being gay, just like it doesn&#x27;t make sense to be &quot;proud&quot; of being white.It makes sense to be proud for staying strong in the face of discrimination and hate speech, but being gay itself is not worthy of any pride.

(Assuming you&#x27;re talking about in the Western world)Do you not see a difference between being gay and being white? Really? Is it not obvious that one group has been historically repressed, attacked, discriminated against, etc. by its &#x27;counter group&#x27;, whilst the other has been the oppressor? These are about the most simplistic facts in social history, so I find it very difficult to believe you unaware of them; it seems more likely that you&#x27;re choosing to ignore them in order to push some bizarre agenda. Just be honest and state the point you&#x27;re actually trying to make.

Is it OK to be proud to be a gay man?Is it OK to be proud to be a gay white man?If you answer one question with yes and one with no, there might be a problem.

The &quot;skin of a rhinoceros&quot; - I liked that the most, as it reflects the development one makes when being part of a minority, no matter if it is sexual, financial ethnical or political nature.

Thanks. It seems it is the latter. In some states the list of things forbidden to discriminate on misses sexual orientation. The wording used in the article was closer to the former.

<a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination_law_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Employment_discrimination_law...</a><a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination_law_in_the_United_States#LGBT_employment_discrimination" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Employment_discrimination_law...</a>

The issue is that there are specific protections for things like age, race and religion, but not sexual orientation. I consider orientation, like race, to be something that you are born with that deserves the same protections.

Close, but no.Sexual orientation isn&#x27;t a protected class under Federal law. (See: <a href="http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eeoc.gov&#x2F;laws&#x2F;types&#x2F;</a> )State Human Rights Law in some states expands to incorporate other protected classes, including sexual orientation and transgendered status.

I&#x27;m no expert, but I suspect this is just referring to work &quot;at will&quot; states, where you can be fired without being given a reason.  Thus, it could actually be for anything: Your orientation, your work performance, that ugly shirt you wore yesterday.  Doesn&#x27;t matter.

In most states, employment law is structured such that the absence of explicit protection means that it is a valid grounds for firing. The laws on the books that create this structure, combined with the absence of an explicit protection for sexual orientation, constitute laws on the books that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation.

I found this one very striking:
&quot;Still, there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation.&quot;Could anyone provide details? I wonder whether it is an explicit &quot;Being gay is grounds for firing&quot; or rather just plain lack of protection from firing for being gay?

That&#x27;s weird ... I though he had come out. I remember reading in Nytimes and Reuters why it was a big deal that Apple will have openly gay CEO a couple of years ago.Anyway good for him.

being part of a tradition doesn&#x27;t imply belief or participation.

What does that have to do with being American? Do you realize the majority of the world&#x27;s population believes in $deity?

What&#x27;s weird? I don&#x27;t get it (i am not american, clearly)

Some people take issue with the word &#x27;pride&#x27;, because you can&#x27;t really say &#x27;I&#x27;m proud to be straight&#x27;. When Tim Cook says, &#x27;I&#x27;m proud to be gay&#x27; however, what he&#x27;s really saying is, &#x27;Contrary to what society expects, I am not ashamed of being gay, because there isn&#x27;t anything shameful about it.&#x27;

Did he tell you what &quot;existence&quot; is? Because I can&#x27;t find the answer to the second thing until I know what that is.It&#x27;s very practical and convenient to just decide that material existence is the ultimate objective reality and I don&#x27;t blame anyone for taking that route - but for a lot of people it&#x27;s much more complicated than that (and fun to think about!) - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Existence</a>

One of the things my father told me when I was very young was, you should not be proud of things you cannot control (birthplace, sex, race, etc.). He also told me that God (or gods) do not exist. I have not found a reason to discard those two.

&gt;Labeling things you don&#x27;t understand or make you uncomfortable as &quot;weird&quot;.Interesting given the article we&#x27;re all commenting on!

Yeah, I know, the US is literally the only place on earth where many people are still religious. South America and Africa and India and countries with Muslim majorities are totally not religious. Just those weird Americans.

&gt;I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.Americans are so weird.

Props for speaking up like this.  My sister is gay and I know what she&#x27;s been going through.  I still hold out hope that mankind will see the day where things like that won&#x27;t matter any more.

He will have no problems. He is the head of one of the most high profile companies on the planet.

Congrats to Tim!  I&#x27;ve been waiting for this for a while.  I&#x27;ve wondered though if he will have any problems traveling to foreign countries now.  I don&#x27;t know how much he travels, but, Russia has some bad anti-gay propaganda laws so there&#x27;s at least one semi-important country to avoid.

That seems like a difference without a distinction - if he believes that only marriage between a man and a woman should be valid or recognized in California, then by extension he believes that a marriage between two men, or two women, should not be valid in california.Which is advocating for not providing that right to same-sex indviduals. Which is anti-gay.If the ballot measure said, &quot;Only votes cast by a white person are valid or recognized in California&quot;, and someone donated money to support that measure - it would be reasonable to expect that they don&#x27;t believe that non-white individuals should have the right to vote.

Actually the problem is even worse because Brendan never expressed that he is anti-gay, he just sent a donation to activists &quot;Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.&quot; [1]
And to me this does not represent that he is anti-gay.1- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Brendan_Eich</a>

People of the bazaar fear those of the cathedral, because they can count the people entering the walled gardens, and many of them never emerge to trade in the agora ever again.Apple has a big garden.

Yes, dangerous because of it&#x27;s reach. I am not very excited to live in a walled garden. A massive one as that.

While this is already known, this does show us the world is not black and white. Tricky the whole thing.Mozilla as a company fights for privacy and creates a lot of free software for the general good. But people couldn&#x27;t stand it&#x27;s CEO being anti-gay. Now we have the most dangerous (imo) company of all time whose CEO is gay.Ah, good times.

This is good, well done Tim Cook. A good event for gay people everywhere, like any other prominent figure coming out publicly.&quot;It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros&quot;And doubly well done for rejecting the skincare regime stereotypically associated with his sexual orientation.

What kind of chair is he sitting on in the first image?

one of the many things i appreciate the most about this essay is his sense of responsibility. its easy to see the leader of a large organization as an extraordinarily powerful individual, but he notes the seeming smallness of this announcement. he doesn&#x27;t aim to change the world, but simply do his part. the last paragraph is so poignant because we all witness injustices and often act as bystanders. this is not a new phenomenon, but its important to remember to look at ourselves first and what we&#x27;re each doing in our everyday lives

Sorry what typo? I&#x27;m not a native english speaker and I want to fix it.EDIT: Thanks for correcting me, sorry. Just to put things in the right context, for me homophobia is unacceptable, so I would never misspelled his surname for a joke or alike.

that&#x27;s a hell of a freudian typo there champ, the question is: are you going to leave it in for posterity?

Well I hope that there is at least a small percentage that can recognize in their homophobic believes a huge limit and improve. What is otherwise the thing to do for somebody as regarded as Tim Cook, to remain very private about their sexuality?

Sadly, that&#x27;s not how cognitive dissonance works. When people receive new information that conflicts with their existing beliefs they very rarely update their beliefs. Instead, they tend to either question the credibility of the new information or downplay its significance.

Well played, this surely can help because even many of the homophobic idiots recognize in Tim Cook a role model, and can start questioning their ideas about diversity.

I hope he brings back the old Apple logo: <a href="http://cdn3.pcadvisor.co.uk/cmsdata/features/3343143/Apple_logo.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn3.pcadvisor.co.uk&#x2F;cmsdata&#x2F;features&#x2F;3343143&#x2F;Apple_l...</a>

What struck me about this piece is how effectively and with such clarity it was crafted: I could hear Tim saying every single one of these words in my head. To make the written word as convincing and powerful as the well-crafted spoken word is truly genius.

Well, there&#x27;s always Newton. We don&#x27;t really know his sexual orientation, but it was probably either gay or asexual.

It looks like we had similar experiences. I had no model of &quot;gay&quot; that resembled me, and almost everyone around me was aggressively straight. Even considering the idea of being gay made me uncomfortable. So much changed in the last year that I felt safe thinking about it, and it was obvious in retrospect.

why &quot;come out.&quot; Why do you feel you need to tell others you&#x27;re gay? I don&#x27;t feel like I need to tell everyone I&#x27;m straight.I never understood this. You&#x27;re gay, so what? What is this thing with some people feeling like they just have to tell others about their personal sexual orientation; especially in the context of business article. This has nothing to do with Apple.If they wanted to report on Apple&#x27;s equality they could have left things with the two sentences:&quot;The company I am so fortunate to lead has long advocated for human rights and equality for all. We’ve taken a strong stand in support of a workplace equality bill before Congress, just as we stood for marriage equality in our home state of California.&quot;and be done with it.

Agreed.After I came out, one of the best things was getting an email from an 18-year-old guy who had read my blog saying that he&#x27;d never spoken to or read anything from a gay person in technology and it was cool to read something from someone who as a programmer and geek came from the same perspective as him. He then said he&#x27;d gotten the courage to tell his parents from that.Which left me feeling amazing for about a week.Tim Cook&#x27;s article will do the same for young gay techies but on a much grander scale. :)

Yep.Now if only we could remind people that there&#x27;s nothing wrong with having an unpopular opinion.After all, Brendan Eich has done more for computing than Cook ever will.

&gt;that&#x27;s sad that we&#x27;re still at this pointThat said, public opinion is changing very rapidly. XKCD 1431 (<a href="http://xkcd.com/1431/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;1431&#x2F;</a>) offers an interesting visualization and comparison between gay marriage and interracial marriage. According to XKCD&#x27;s source, interracial marriage didn&#x27;t reach majority approval until 1995, while gay marriage already reached majority approval in 2011.Now obviously this rift could be the result of oddly-worded polls, data mis-interpretation or some other factor and it shouldn&#x27;t be taken as a strict source, but I believe it speaks volumes all the same

While I agree it&#x27;s a positive thing for him to talk about, I don&#x27;t care much for the way he&#x27;s phrasing it. What does it mean to be &quot;proud&quot; of something you are? Isn&#x27;t that what we criticize white supremacists and other bigots for?Take pride in the things you do, the things you create. My only reaction to someone who takes pride in his or her race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation is quizzical indifference.

At first I didn&#x27;t like the news. Tim Cook is gay, so what? I though 5 seconds about it and then I realized how actually we still need this... we still need to remind people that there&#x27;s nothing wrong with being gay. That&#x27;s sad that we are still at this point.

&gt; The biggest step is admitting to yourself that you&#x27;re different.
I&#x27;m straight, so I probably don&#x27;t get it. So I might be wrong. But it feels like that&#x27;s the wrong way to go about it. I see gays and lesbians regularly in public places and they don&#x27;t seem too rare to me. Instilling this feeling of being different may only make it harder for people. Your sexual orientation shouldn&#x27;t make you feel different. No matter whom you&#x27;re attracted to, there are a lot of people out there who are attracted to the same.

well said. I think this is such a great symbolic moment. It&#x27;s so hard to come to terms with your &#x27;otherness&#x27; when you&#x27;re young. The biggest step is admitting to yourself that you&#x27;re different.

Shrug. There hasn&#x27;t been a publicly gay President, which is what would in the context the OP is discussing.

Homosexuality was still a crime in his day (up to 2003), so I doubt it was well-known if this is true.

What an excellent article, thanks for sharing.<pre><code> &quot;Despite such evidence, one reason why Americans find it hard to believe Buchanan
 could have been gay is that we have a touching belief in progress. Our high
 school history textbooks’ overall story line is, “We started out great and have
 been getting better ever since,” more or less automatically. Thus we must be
 more tolerant now than we were way back in the middle of the 19th century!
 Buchanan could not have been gay then, else we would not seem more tolerant now.&quot;</code></pre>

I can&#x27;t believe what I&#x27;m reading there about facial hair.

&quot;There hasn&#x27;t been a gay President&quot;<a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/05/14/our_real_first_gay_president/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.salon.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;05&#x2F;14&#x2F;our_real_first_gay_president...</a>

We&#x27;ve gone through an incredible process in a single generations. Truly incredible and blazingly fast. It hasn&#x27;t been everywhere, but it certainly has been global.In many ways it seemed to have very high hurdles. Homosexuality and queerness elicits an unexplainably intense anger in some people. It is potently threatening. On the other hand, overcoming homophobia had a relatively small hurdle to get over because there was no intergenerational complexity like racism and xenophobia or deeply rooted structural institutions like sexism. Homosexuals were already everywhere in secret. A homosexual didn&#x27;t need to overcome to become CEO, he was already a CEO. He just needed to come out.A part of the precess that I think is happening now nearer the cutting edge is post revolutionary normalization. After the gay parades and overt homosexuality that forced the issue into centre stage what is needed is a homosexuality that can be worn lightly outside of the spheres were it is naturally central (like romantic relationships).Tim Cook is gay, but he&#x27;s mostly the CEO of Apple. His gayness is not the central part of his public identity and not being public about it up till now is not being closeted.It&#x27;s really a great thing that happened, and is happening. I&#x27;m glad to be part of the generation that made it happened, a gift to those who will come after, to those who will not have to suffer.

&gt; It&#x27;s really good that young gay people to have so many prominent and positive role models now,Agree! Though as an avid sports fan, I&#x27;m disappointed in the sports world for not embracing this topic. With so many professional athletes odds are in favour of many a house hold name being gay, yet there are only a small handful of sports people that are openly gay.It is inspiring that Tim Cook has done this, and I really hope top athletes look to this and follow suit. Tim Cook will positively influence many, but not as many as say, Michael Jordan or Christiano Ronaldo.I suppose this is yet another example of our industry being thought leaders.

&gt; This is hilarious in retrospectI know what you mean. Lots of childhood things are silly to look back on. But &quot;hilarious&quot; is just not a word I&#x27;d use about a child terrified of her future, even if it was exaggerated.

Agreed.I was in a similar boat. My first exposure to the term &quot;lesbian&quot; was a flash cartoon that had a throwaway gag about a butch woman who lived in the sewer and ate children—I remember going home and crying because I strongly suspected that that&#x27;s what I was, once the other kids explained what the term meant, and I didn&#x27;t want to end up having to move underground and away from all my friends once I grew up. (This is hilarious in retrospect, but at the time I was really distressed.)It&#x27;s really good that young gay people to have so many prominent and positive role models now, and easy access to information on the subject via the internet. Can&#x27;t imagine my story happening to anyone today.

Several statements he made in this post seemed weirdly manipulative to me, and that was one of them.I mean, its great that he chooses and advocates the view that homosexuality can be a &#x27;gift&#x27;. That it can be a positive thing! Props for that!But the phrasing...does he really believe that the imaginary being he worships chose for him to be gay? Like the creator of the universe is really sitting there saying &quot;oh, I&#x27;ll make this one straight! and this one bi! and this one gay!&quot;

By saying &quot;I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me&quot; he is directly confronting those who discriminate for religious reasons, probably the majority.I think it is savvy of him to meet it head-on, to prod people to maybe reconsider their reflexive religious beliefs.

I applaud this. I am not gay. Conventional family, kids, etc. Oh, yes, I am also an atheist which, today, in the US, is worst than being gay in some circles.As I am sure a lot of you know, the reality show Survivor features a male homosexual couple this year. Bravo! We watch the show with our kids every week. Yes, they ask questions. The little ones cover their eyes when anybody kisses on TV anyway. Seeing two men kiss on the lips and show affection is, well, weird to them. You just don&#x27;t see that on mainstream TV these days. We simply tell them that what they are seeing is perfectly normal and that these are two people who love each other just as much as mom and dad do. They say &quot;ok&quot; and still go &quot;ewwwww!&quot; When anyone kisses on the show.The part of Tim Cook&#x27;s statement that is disappointing to me is where he says &quot;I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.&quot;. Of course, as an atheist I tend to be particularly sensitive to such statements. If we leave that aside, it is simply a fact that god and religion --world wide-- have been brutal to the gay community. Historically this has ranged from denouncement all the way up to torture and murder. And that stands on it&#x27;s own, it&#x27;s a historical fact that has nothing whatsoever to do with the messenger being an atheist.Anyhow, I am glad he decided to come out as the role model he surely is. Society has far to go. This helps. Every little step helps.

Well, they are! <a href="http://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-companies/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;worlds-most-admired-companies&#x2F;</a>

I&#x27;m not sure Apple is &quot;the most admirable company&quot;, or even in the running.

It&#x27;s an interesting coincidence for Mr Cook to come out alongside the movie adaptation of Alan Turing: The Enigma. When I was an undergrad in the 90s, that book was the only obvious story about an out geek, and it was far more cathartic than comforting.After that, some happier stories started to appear. Eric Allman and Marshall McKusick dropped by the university queer room incognito. There were some movies, Beautiful Thing and Get Real, where people were gay and nothing much happened. That was a big deal then, but I assumed it would all sound corny 20 years later.

&gt; but also the most admirable company,Really ? Did you have to say that to make your point ? What&#x27;s so admirable about Apple ? Jobs has been lying constantly about competition, lied about being the first innovators in so many of their products, has pressured other companies to prevent poaching Apple employees to keep salaries as low as he could, and the list does not end there.Fine, you can love Apple as much as you want, but calling it the &quot;most admirable company&quot; out there is rubber-breaking stretch.

I am incredibly grateful to Cook for this, not least because of how it will affect young gay people.When I was a child, I felt generally good about myself. I was reasonably smart, well-spoken, curious, and so on, and I wanted to do something important with my life. Some nagging part of me suspected I was gay from very early on, but I resisted it intensely. I wasn&#x27;t really afraid of being mistreated, although I probably should have been. People were already calling me names so I wasn&#x27;t worried about that. More important for me was my sense that being gay meant being marginal.There hasn&#x27;t been a gay President, and at least when I was a child there weren&#x27;t many gay people visible to me at all. The image of gay people presented to me were not powerful, focused on frivolous things, and consumed by attitude and lifestyle. If I wanted to do something important, I couldn&#x27;t possibly be gay. It just didn&#x27;t fit.Knowing that the CEO of not only the most powerful company, but also the most admirable company, is gay would have helped me enormously. I always wanted apple products even before I could afford them, and this would have meant a clearly visible path forward. I can&#x27;t imagine how happy this must be making some confused young people, given how happy it&#x27;s making me right now.

He is gay, white, male, lives in the bay area, is a brilliant CEO of a tech company...Yes, a lot of reasons to think he would most likely be completely non-religious, if not atheist.I didn&#x27;t know he grew up in the south, though.

Indeed. Oh, he&#x27;s gay, we all knew that. Wait, the CEO of Apple is a Christian? That I did not know. Judging by the comment thread here, it seems to be new to a lot of people. It&#x27;s not a big deal, but it did surprise me. It&#x27;s easy to assume that a gay man living in the Bay Area is going to be an atheist.

I agree. We should be a lot more shocked that an individual that understands the internet and how information spreads still clings to the fairy tales told to him by his parents.This is no different than believing in Santa Claus and we&#x27;re all distracted by what kind of sex he likes to have. I&#x27;ve never heard of a war started by gay people. Being religious is being complicit in that religion&#x27;s wrongdoings.Also I&#x27;d say it&#x27;s strange that a gay person is religious. Any person holding a non-mainstream position ends up having to do a lot of thinking and reading before accepting oneself for what they are. In that process they usually become a lot more rational. Didn&#x27;t work for Tim, though. Weird.

The shocking news here is that Tim Cook is religious.

Greatness is not a slave to sexual orientation.

Older. Negative experiences with younger people were just ignorant and probably did not intend harm. Some older folks will say things with pure hate and complete disregard to our feelings. I understand when Cook mentions the empathy you gain when being a part of a minority. I get anxious when walking into a restaurant that I am unfamiliar with. I think to myself... are we are going to be welcome here, is someone going to say something, what should I do if that happens etc. I&#x27;ve never had these feelings the first 25 years of my life.On the other hand, there were occasions complete strangers (usually older) have said very nice things to us in public. These positive experiences greatly out number the negative.

reddit and similar sites are basically overflowing with teenage&#x2F;20-something white male racists, so I&#x27;m guessing no...

Have you experienced that only from older people? We can only hope that this kind of bigotry go away with new generations.

&gt; Wow. I feel so sorry for you that you live in a supposedly civilized countryYou might have missed the part where he said he lives in Texas.

Wow. I feel so sorry for you that you live in a supposedly civilized country and you have to live with that.What a shame.

you should think about moving to west coast or a large city.

I am a white male married to a black female with 2 mixed kids living in Texas. While we haven&#x27;t experienced much bigotry our way, it has happened. The first time I was filled with disbelief and shortly after rage while my wife (then gf) cried.Our lives would be different if we were born a generation ago. Thank you MLK and Tim Cook.

Someone isn&#x27;t out until they out themselves. Until then, it&#x27;s gossip and speculation from second-hand (or worse) sources.I&#x27;m glad the culture around him reached the point where he felt comfortable and safe being out. Hopefully this will be a kick in the pants to the culture around me. It&#x27;s hard to date when most people are in the closet.

Good for him. At first my reaction was &quot;meh&quot;, but I think this is a net win for gays and Apple. Homophobes probably weren&#x27;t buying many Apple products to begin with, and potential&#x2F;reasonable homophobes now see another successful leader who just so happens to be gay. The message to those people is pretty clear: better not mistreat people because of their sexual preference; not only will you look like an ass, but you run the risk of pissing off the person who might be signing your paycheck one day. Not to mention designing some cool piece of tech that you brag about owning.

This is going to sound callous, but my reaction is: big deal.And this should be everybody&#x27;s reaction, IMO. I&#x27;ll explain momentarily.Being gay isn&#x27;t easy if you aren&#x27;t in a supportive environment. Hell, being gay will get you killed in some cultures and countries. In some places you&#x27;ll merely be shunned and disowned by your family and friends. As a straight guy, I know this. How?Because for the last 20 years or so, I&#x27;ve heard this again and again. The LGBT movement is nothing if not vocal and persistent, even to the point of being heavy-handed. I&#x27;m not saying I&#x27;m unsympathetic, I&#x27;m just saying that if there&#x27;s a target demographic for &quot;awareness&quot;, I haven&#x27;t classified to be in that group for years.So when Tim Cook officially announces his sexuality, I&#x27;m well aware that this isn&#x27;t something as casually mentioned as being left-handed, having AB- blood type or a peanut allergy, preferring cats over dogs, or liking the color yellow. I&#x27;m also aware that for LGBT folks who haven&#x27;t come out, seeing a successful person do so can be encouraging and inspiring.Now regarding my &quot;big deal&quot; reaction...While civilization will never be without bigots of one form or another, if we as a society are ever going to get past racial&#x2F;gender&#x2F;sexual issues, then disclosures like Cook&#x27;s need to be unremarkable. Comparing America&#x27;s reaction to Billy Crystal simply playing a gay man on &quot;Soap&quot; in the 80s to today, it seems like we&#x27;ve come a long way in a relatively short time compared to other social movements.By the same token, an incident earlier this year demonstrated that the tech industry is probably the one of most gay-friendly business sectors to be in. Ironically, Brendan Eich was attacked, ostracized and shunned for his beliefs because they weren&#x27;t gay-friendly. As an outsider, it does not appear that being a gay CEO in the California high-tech industry is as much of a burden as, say, a restaurant owner in Istanbul.Finally, Tim Cook is worth upwards of $400 million. Like all wealthy individuals, he is generally insulated from contact with the rest of us simply because of his lifestyle: he doesn&#x27;t take the bus, doesn&#x27;t live in an apartment or typical suburban neighborhood, and certainly doesn&#x27;t work in a cubicle. He likely won&#x27;t encounter hate unless he tries to personally negotiate the opening of an Apple store in Moscow or Tehran. He&#x27;s not a monster because he&#x27;s rich (as far as I know he might be a really nice guy), but he&#x27;s hardly an &quot;everyman&quot;. For what it&#x27;s worth, I had a similar reaction when many people were showering Mark Zuckerberg with praise for learning Chinese: hell, if I was that rich, I&#x27;d have time (and money) to learn Chinese from the best tutors.In short, anyone announcing that they&#x27;re gay should garner a &quot;so what?&quot; reaction because as a society we should be moving towards a person&#x27;s actions being more important than their appearance, beliefs, or sexual orientation. And a multimillionaire making such an announcement today should elicit yawns because he is not representative of a typical person.Edit: Not surprised by the downvote without explanation. Congratulations, sir or ma&#x27;am: you&#x27;re part of the problem.

Excellent news.  For someone who has often been described as very private and opaque, I feel like I understand him a lot better now.  Not to mention the positive social impact this will probably have.

&gt; When I arrive in my office each morning, I’m greeted by framed photos of Dr. King and Robert F. Kennedy.Personally, I was struck as much or more by this statement. This certainly does not follow the standard political &amp; business script that we are force feed in the USA. I look forward to hearing more from Cook speaking to social issues.

Because the list evidences that Tim Cook is the ONLY openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company (and he happens to be at the head of #5).

It&#x27;s a big deal because you made a list?

In case you think this is no big deal, here&#x27;s the updated list of Fortune 500 CEOs who are openly gay:Tim Cook

Tim Cook Speaks Up