Man! Talk about pie-in-the-sky, sweet bye and bye! "Coming out" has evolved into the centerpiece of gay strivings for social attention, but does coming out really deliver what it promises or simply add to the confusion and pain of men and women who already have a ton of trouble on their backs? Here's my diagnosis of this malady that has reached near-epidemic proportions:

Gays (maybe well-meaning, but nevertheless misleading) have defrauded many people struggling with their sexuality, into believing that declaring one's homosexuality publicly is some citadel of honesty. "After years in the closet as a professional baseball player, Billy Bean finds happiness as an openly-gay man", reads the tagline of a 1999 Advocate story on Billy Bean. When a young baseball fan stopped Bean on a New York City street and asked him for an autograph, he had an epiphany of sorts. "Now, I feel like I might be able to do something good with my life", he said. Bean's statements typically represent the hundreds of others filtered through the gay-obsessed media, touting coming out as the single most important thing gays and lesbians can do in life.

In 1993, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) took stewardship of the National Coming-Out Day as a way to "empower" people to publicly announce their homosexuality. Some have described this act as "courageous", while others have sung its praises like an African-American choir at a Sunday morning gospelfest. Most are led to believe that if you just come out of your closet, then life will be just fine, everyone will respect you more and you will help others. Why would anyone want everyone to know that you have sex with someone of your same gender? Especially when gays steadfastly insist that this is no one's business what they do in their bedrooms. Recently, a sports columnist with the Detroit News, whom I will not name, told me, "You don't pretend to be something that gets you ridiculed and lambasted in today's society." So, coming out is the answer? If being gay was such an exercise in persecution, why make yourself an open target, only to turn around and whine about the lack of acceptance (I'm using their logic)?

But quite the contrary, coming out is more like fairy-tale role playing. It's like Cinderella's big moment when Prince Charming finds her and viola!--the shoe fits! Happily ever after. It's the perfect fairy tale. It's like "The Ugly Duckling", where the repressed, young homosexual looks in the mirror of "queer pressure", finally discovers his or her true self and declares with sass: "Geez, I was born this way!" We all know that when fairy tale dreaming is over, the real life, with its sometimes tragic components, has to be dealt with. This is what the coming out dream cannot prepare gays for. In the wake of the type and euphoria of letting others know of your sexual preferences, a personal battle, probably more intense than the first picks up steam.

Then, there's the truly dark side to coming out. Some who are truly at odds with their homosexual feelings fall victim to the sweet and sour baiting of the public image of coming out. People like this are deeply hurt and sometimes never recover because the conflict brought on by such a critical decision causes fatal results. Such was the case of black British soccer player Justin Fashinu who committed suicide in 1998. After listening to gay friends who urged him to come out to the press and the sports world, Fashinu became horrified and conflicted at his self-embraced homosexuality. A gay friend said that Fashinu was "destroyed by homophobia, Christian fundamentalism, and a lack of support from fellow football players and managers", but in reality, Fashinyu had turned to God, seeking Him for freedom from what he came to believe was sin in his life.

I'm sure the HRC hired some of the best spinmasters available to put a good Maybelline (Fashion Fair for our people of color) face on the coming out thing. But it's not working. It will never work because there are too many people who have tried it and found out that it wasn't what it was cranked up to be. They discovered that the gay lifestyle was filled with temporary highs, desperate moments, and countless broken people who continued to hide what they felt inside. There's one thing about a fairy tale: when it's over, it's over! For me, after 11 years of chasing the elusive "happiness and empowerment" they promised, I decided I would really come out. For good!