When actress Ellen Page came out this past weekend, author and mother of gay son Anne Rice wrote a Facebook note congratulating her. As is so often with the case with the internet, that brought a veritable flock of anti-gay trolls out, and after dealing with their abuse for a couple days, Anne decided to let them have it with these words:
Our post commending actress Ellen Page for her courage in coming out as gay attracted a lot of hostility and hate and hate speech — as well as positive and substantive comments. I have banned many from the page today. I will no longer tolerate hate speech in the guise of Christian belief with the usual irresponsible pick and choose bible quotes and talk of “sin” and hellfire. I have had enough of it, and I think the world has had enough of it too. Again, I commend Ellen Page for her bravery in coming out. I hope more celebrities and public figures will be inspired to do so. Anyone who thinks this does not matter is deceiving himself or herself. It matters very much. Gay people in all walks of life suffer from bigotry, bias, superstition, and ignorance. Hats off to Ellen Page! (And please do NOT come here to tell us publicly that you “don’t care.” If you don’t care, don’t expect us to care that you don’t care!).
Preach it. You can click over and read more of her interactions with anti-gay folks. She’s quite good at it.
Anne’s son Chris, of course, is a well respected author in his own right. I finished his latest a couple weeks ago and I highly recommend it.
And, of course, if you have not yet watched Ellen Page’s coming out video, you should take a few minutes. It’s incredibly inspiring and real.
