> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Come out, come out, wherever you are - URL: https://www.smdp.com/come-out-come-out-wherever-you-are-2/ - Published: 2005-10-11T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-25T01:06:05.000Z - Author: David Pisarra - Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import *WHAT’S THE POINT?* Today is National Coming Out Day (NCOD). It is a day set aside to publicize awareness, promote acceptance and put a human face on the vast spectrum of human sexuality. It has a genesis that comes from the first march on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights held on Oct. 11, 1987\. In 1988, the first NCOD was held to commemorate the anniversary. In 1987, half a million people converged on Washington. Ronald Reagan was president, and even though the country was in the middle of the AIDS crisis, he still couldn’t say the word “AIDS.” The Names project was laid out on the mall for the first time. Thousands of handmade panels remembering the dead were displayed. Since that time the world has changed radically. Hopefully, in part due to the efforts of this one day, and the spokespeo-ple that have had the courage to come forth and tell their stories. We are wired to automatically fear that which we know little about. Historically, this has been a good thing, in that it allowed man to evolve from a cave, and survive many of the great threats to his existence. But as man evolved, it became less necessary for us to fear other humans. Yet, the old wiring is still there. It manifests itself in many ways still today. One look at the national news will tell you that racism is still entrenched in the south, a religious war is still being fought in Ireland, Israel and Iraq. The African continent has known little long-term peace, and ethnic cleansing still occurs today. How do you change minds? How do you bring people of ignorance into the light and stop the hating? You put a face on it. Even with a Constitutional Amendment giving them the right to vote in 1870, black civil rights didn’t get very far until a little lady put a face on the issue by not giving up her seat at the back of the bus in 1955. Women’s suffrage got nowhere until Susan B. Anthony came along and was arrested for illegally voting in a presidential election. For the gay community, this lesson was lost from 1969 — the year of the Stonewall riots in New York — until 1987\. It was in the afterglow of the highly visible march on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights, that the originators of the idea Rob Eichberg, and Jean O'Leary, decided a day to celebrate coming out of the closet was needed. And with that, National Coming Out Day was born. NCOD is important not because of the highly visible gay people who have been associated with it; celebrities like Dan Butler, the actor who played “Bulldog” of Frasier and Candace Gingrich, half-sister of then Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich or Betty DeGeneres, the first straight spokesperson for NCOD and mother of Ellen DeGeneres. It is not important as a fundraising event because that is not its purpose. Rather, it is important because it gives permission to Chris the waiter at your local greasy spoon to come out and be who he is. Because when Chris comes out, his friends and family have to confront a new reality, one that perhaps they have never known. It is possible that they never knew a gay person, and he or she might be the example that changes their minds about what being gay is. Chastity Bono, the lesbian daughter of the late Republican Congressman Sonny Bono will not change the homophobes opinion of lesbians. But she might give courage to the lesbian daughter of a homophobe to come out, and with that, change an opinion of what a lesbian is. I know for myself, I had an easy time in some ways of coming out. I was in a small liberal arts school, where “different” was commonplace. I grew up in a small town just outside of San Francisco and my brother and mother and I would go each year to the Gay Pride Parade. Yet, I still was anxious about telling my friends and family. I was worried about my mother hating me, my brothers never speaking to me again and losing my best friend. But Dan Butler was gay. And he was out. And that made it just the tiniest bit easier for me to creep out of the closet and begin to accept who I am. It took years. And yet, I still today, have moments of doubt. Just last week I had a meeting where I outed myself, and my first reaction was to question if that was a mistake. Had I just ruined my chances at this new contract because the two men I was working with might be homophobic? This being Los Angeles, and me being who I am, it didn’t really matter. But the fact is I was still nervous. Granted, my anxiety these days gets less each time I out myself. But it’s still there. And that is why NCOD is important, because if I, a 39-year-old lawyer, with a spouse and a home, and a couple of businesses is still afraid, what is it like for the 19-year-olds who are coming from a less than open-minded background and with little or no resources to fall back upon? In many ways it is getting easier. The polls are showing greater acceptance by society of sexuality in general — the current governor’s bigotry notwithstanding. Gay faces appear on TV and in the movies with greater frequency each year. But that is why NCOD matters. Because progress is being made. It matters for one person to come out and affect the awareness of his or her family and friends. One person who was given just that little bit of extra courage, thanks to the face of someone they might never had met. For me, it was Dan Butler. For my friends, it was me. (David Pisarra is a business development lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He or (310) 664-9969.) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 11, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/101105.pdf?ref=smdp.com)