Why Mandela?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-116528 2/Will-Young-Lily-Savage-Quentin-Crisp-selecte d-gay-icons-gallery-exhibition--choose-Nelson- Mandela.html

Why Mandela, you don't think sp could have been involved in the selection do you?

Sandi Toksvig said she would have found it 'life-changing' if there had been more high-profile openly gay public figures to look up to when she was younger.

She is only 50 now, so where were these openly gay people around 1975, still in the cupboard?

[NiceCupOfTea]

According to the spiel in the article you linked us to, the panel weren't told to pick only gay icons, but anyone they found inspirational. Why shouldn't Nelson Mandela be inspirational to gay people? He is definitely someone who stood up for people's rights, and so therefore has to be an inspiration to any one who has had to fight for their own rights to be recognised.

By the way, what's 'sp'? (I'm a little dim at this time of night...)

[Sgt.Rock]

Some people class him as a terrorist?

[NiceCupOfTea]

you for real?

[Sgt.Rock]

Read his history, matter of opinion - but that is what some people class him as. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

[NiceCupOfTea]

So apartheid wasn't something to be struggled against then?

[sp1814]

Small technical point

Gay people don't come out of the cupboard, they come out of the closet.

Cups and saucers come out of the cupboard.

[fredpuli47]

"These openly gay people" may or may not have been 'in the closet' in 1975. Back then, people had some strange ideas about gay men and women and/or were openly hostile to them. The law legalising consensual adult homosexual acts in private had only been passed in 1967. Happily we've got a bit more civilized since then but then a homosexual man or woman might well have thought it wise to hide, or lie about, their sexuality. That's seemingly what Sandi Toksvig was refering to when she said it would have been 'life changing' to have had high-profile openly gay public figures to look up to.

[anotheoldgit]

sp1814

Small technical point

One mans closet is another mans cupboard.

CLOSET:

A cabinet or enclosed recess for linens, household supplies, or clothing.

CUPBOARD:

A closet or cabinet, usually with shelves for storing food, crockery, and utensils.

[fredpuli47]

AOG: " Closet: A private or small room especially one used for private devotions or study

The private apartment of a monarch

A room etc for urination and defecation, a lavatory

A private repository of valuables, curiosities etc

A cupboard, a recess for storage (Now dialect & North American ) " [Shorter Oxford English Dictionary]

Take your pick ! Some of the above might fit. However, unless you, or they, are speaking some English dialect ,the speakers are using an Americanism. You are to be commended for defending the British way, but " Come out of the cupboard" has something of a comical ring about it . Nearest translation should , perhaps ,be 'Come out of the wardrobe" but that sounds distinctly of the French farce tradition and heterosexual !