Neil Patrick Harris talks to OUT magazine for their September issue and expresses his joy over the recent visibility of same-sex couples in the news surrounding the California same-sex marriage legislation (“I think that speaks way more than the ‘God Hates Fags' signs.”). He also talks about what he believes his own role to be as a visible gay man:
“My job is jester — not advocate. I'm on a situation comedy responding to [Josh Radnor's character] Ted Mosby and his wacky adventures — that's my job right now. If people want to comment about where I go to dinner, they are welcome to, but it's not my job to respond to those statements. The Internet stuff threw me for a loop because I didn't understand where the vitriol was coming from. I thought I had been representing well, and in turn it seemed like I was quickly condemned to step to the plate, and I was fine with that. I'm striving to be an example of normalcy. Because I'm noticed as an actor, people are aware of what's happening in my life, and that I can't change, and if I tried to, it'd be an uphill battle. I'd be angry and bitter. I'm a big proponent of monogamous relationships regardless of sexuality, and I'm proud of how the nation is steering toward that. Then you can look around and say, ‘I really deeply feel like I'm in love with this person, there are people who feel the same thing, and those models are normal.' The ‘normal' couples were sort of in the shadows for the past 15 or 20 years because you sort of needed other people to come forward and speak out.”
Harris also confesses to a crush on Anderson Cooper:
“Mmmmmmmm. Anderson. He's dreamy. Just dreamy. I've been a fan of his since season 1 of The Mole. I just thought he was so cool when he talked in this cool, low, secret-agent voice — ‘If you can accomplish this task…' Listen, no one can tell anyone how big their steps should be or when they can take them. You can take issue with someone making overtly denying statements, and you can take issue with people straight-up presenting themselves as someone that they're not — because I think that's kind of shady and not very stand-up. But you can't fault someone for going through the process at their own time. You can't. But again — to speak to the public nature of things — it is in our capacity to respect the job descriptions that people have separate from the life that they live. And I don't care about the person on the news…I literally tune in to hear the news. I might find them dreamy, but I don't really need to know much more about them.”
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