Beam me up Mr. Sulu...

I am glad that another Hollywood actor has decided to come out of the closet and declare his homosexuality. If you didn't hear, Geroge Takei, better know to many as Mr. Sulu, helmsman of the USS Starship Enterprise on the classic Star Trek tv show and many subsequent movies, has recently come out in Frontiers, a biweekly Los Angeles gay and lesbian magazine.

I think this is very significant, because many of the old cast of the classic Star Trek is well known by almost everyone (so now more people can say they know someone who is gay), but is also important to the Asian community. If you thought homophobia may still be rampant here (and it still may be with Big Brother GW Bush still looming over our shoulders), in Asian countries and communities, it is even a bigger problem. When one comes out in and Asian family, many think you are disgracing your family, and it feels like you are almost disgracing your whole country, and the very fiber of your being. There is a lot of guilt played out. I know that this might not be true of most Asian families, but it does happen. I've read David Henry Hwang's M Butterfly. I know things are changing slowly, but China still has so many imposed restrictions (and not just on homosexuals), that it's not even funny.

So to be a person of Asian decent (Mr. Takei is Japanese), is a big deal to me. I've always admired others like B.D. Wong and the late Leslie Cheung for having the bravery to come out as an Asian gay or bisexual man. To live in America and to be shamed a minority amongst minorities is definitely a tragic thing.