Coming Out Day.

Today is National Coming Out Day, a day for support and awareness for those who are out or are coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered. It is also observed to celebrate coming out and used to raise awareness for LGBT issues.

I am a very strong supporter of coming out -- you can't live your life to the fullest if you're hiding part of yourself away from the world and pretending to be something you're not. However, I am not a supporter of outing others. Deciding to come out is a very personal and emotional decision, and it is no one's job to out someone else (here's looking at you, Perez Hilton).

One of my close friends is the secretary for an assistant principal at a local high school and she was telling me about a boy who had been called into the office to be disciplined for being drunk at a football game. The student had always been a good kid and this was his first offense of any kind. It turns out that the student had been dating an openly gay boy on the sly, and when the relationship ended, the open student told everyone that the student was gay. He was miserable, because that's not how he chose to come out.

It was no one's right to out anyone but themselves, and shame on anyone who says that they're "helping" by forcing people to come out. As our society evolves and it becomes less dangerous to be openly gay, I hope that everyone will be able to embrace themselves fully and be open with the people in their lives. But as long as people are being fired for being gay or being bullied in school for being gay, people have legitimate reasons for remaining closeted. Some people have emotional reasons, such as unaccepting parents, that keep them in the closet. There are a depressingly large number of homeless LGBT youth because they were thrown out of the house by their parents when they came out. Staying in the closet is their right, whether you agree with it or not.

After all, not everyone has Cher or Barbra as parents. If only.