News Tuesday: Name and Shame?

An American gay magazine has decided to name Hollywood stars it claims are gay or lesbian in an attempt to crowbar them out of the closet.

The annual Out magazine's May edition features two models holding masks of actress Jodie Foster and American TV news anchor Anderson Cooper in front of their faces, with the headline "The Glass Closet: Why Stars Won’t Come Out And Play."

Village Voice columnist Michael Musto's 'outing' article comments: "Even at their most controlling, straight stars never seem to leave out the fact that they're straight in interviews. Whenever a subject tells me, 'I won't discuss who I'm dating' or 'I resent labels,' I generally know not so much that they're passionate about privacy but that they're gay gay, gay."

With a number of sites dedicated to outing stars popping up – and one particularly juvenile and venomous US-based website has garnered a considerable following – any closeted stars over here in the UK must be getting decidedly edgy. Though the resulting list might not be as glamorous as anything Hollywood throws up, the sad reality is that it could bring careers crashing.

But does forcing stars in ‘name and shame’ style exposés do much to raise the profile of gay and lesbian actors. Wouldn’t it be more useful to target the homophobia within the industry that keeps stars from coming out, even when, as with Foster, it’s an open secret already?