I have no idea why, but for some reason CNN has decided to hail Perez Hilton as a pioneer for gay Latinos in America, and makes him the main topic of their piece on gays and lesbians coming out of the closet in the Latino community.

Perez Hilton is a celebrity blogger who dishes out the latest Hollywood gossip, but there’s something about his personal life you may not know.

Hilton is a Latino pioneer. He is one of the first Latino public figures in the U.S. to be openly gay. While Latinos have broken ground on the U.S. Supreme Court, in Hollywood and in professional sports, gay Latinos in the nation’s public arena remain largely invisible.

Hilton says deep-seated homophobia within the Latino community has forced many gay Latinos to go underground, but attitudes are shifting.

I suppose it says something about Hollywood and the media if Perez Hilton’s the best “pioneer” they can find, but at any rate they go to discuss the deep-rooted issues with homophobia among Latinos.

Like other gay people of color, Latino gays face a double bind: discrimination from mainstream culture and from their own community, Torres says.

This double bind presents an obstacle to Latinos who consider coming out. Their challenge: risking rejection from their family when they need their family as a refuge from racism.

They mention a poet who struggled with violent homophobia and his own self-loathing but later came to find acceptance.

Emanuel Xavier, a gay poet and spoken word artist, says he almost destroyed himself because he couldn’t find acceptance within the Latino community.

The New York-based poet says he grew up knowing that his sexual identity infuriated other Latinos. He once saw kids pelt a gay Latino hairdresser with stones. He routinely heard Roman Catholic priests condemn homosexuals.

His own mother called him names when she discovered he was gay, says Xavier, editor of “Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry.”

Xavier says he was so filled with self-loathing that he once sold drugs and engaged in risky sexual behavior.

“I became all those things society expected me to become,” he says. “I thought that was the only thing I could be.”

Xavier says he decided to ditch his reckless lifestyle and become a poet. He reconciled with his mother and took on a new mission. He wanted to show others that one could be Latino, gay and proud.

It’s an interesting piece on both the Latin community in the U.S. as well as the changing world in Latin America.  I just really wish they’d excluded Perez Hilton and not given him more reason to think he’s a legitimate celebrity.

Speaking of gay Latinos, this article reminds me of another article I read a while back about a Latin gay couple in the Bronx that had adopted children, and their day-to-day struggle in their community.  It also mentions how gay couples in the Bronx are more likely to adopt children than in any other New York City borough. It’s an interesting read.

Andrew Wilkow, who played guest host for the apparently highly rated Mark Levin Show on Sirius Radio, had some inflammatory statements to make about celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and MSNBC political pundit Rachel Maddow.  I’ve never heard of him, but supposedly he’s relatively well known.

“Perez Hilton, who I am now terming a vile sodomite . . . yeah, Perez, you’re a vile sodomite – doesn’t that word have a ring to it – sodomite — and vile – vile sodomite – it just sounds so good to hear in my headphones – vile sodomite . . . . I’m not sure whose idea it was to have an overweight homosexual . . . What do gays constitute? They could announce the cure for AIDS on Logo and nobody would know for two weeks . . . And again, Perez Hilton, you’re a vile sodomite . . . and then this vile sodomite . . .

You, the idiot taxpayer, are paying the salary of that nice little boy, Rachel Maddow . . . Keith Olbermann’s nephew, Rachel Maddow . . . .”

I’m really not sure why he seems to have such a fixation on the phrase “vile sodomite”, or why he thinks the taxpayer is somehow funding Rachel Maddow.

I hate Perez Hilton as much as the next person, but it seems ridiculous to go after his sexual orientation when there are so many more intelligent ways to attack someone that inane.

(via Huffington Post)