Boston Herald sportswriter Steve Buckley revealed that he is gay in his latest column.
In the column, titled "Welcome to my coming-out party," Buckley says that he had intended to tell his readers--and his listeners who hear him talk about Boston sports on local radio--about his sexuality years ago, after his mother, who had been worried about the public reaction to such an admission, changed her mind:
Just over seven years ago, before Thanksgiving, we were getting into the car outside of a CVS when my mother said, "I think you should go ahead and do that story you've been talking about."
"Really?"
"Yes," she said. "Just go ahead and do it. And then we'll have a party."
She was talking about the story in which I would say that I am gay.
But then, Buckley writes, he made "the biggest mistake of my life: With a vacation lined up for the first week of December, I told her I'd get to it when I returned to Boston -- just before Christmas."
Tragically, his mother died of a heart attack the day after he returned from vacation. In the intervening years, he writes, the connection between a coming-out column and his mother's death made him put the column off.
Now, though, Buckley says that the recent spate of anti-gay violence and gay suicides have convinced him "if more people are able to be honest about who they are, ultimately fewer people will feel such devastating pressure."
To read the full column, click here.