How would Foster being out of the closet have helped [gay people]? . . . This is extremely silly, collectivist, identity politics. Jodie Foster is an autonomous individual with her own ambitions, her own thoughts, and her own desires, as we all are. Just because she happens to share your and your friends’ sexual orientation does not make her part of your "community" in any meaningful way, and it certainly does not make her obligated to take up the cause of this [community] . . .As the post on passing argues, "a liberal democracy . . . means complete freedom to live a private life so long as doing so does not infringe the rights and liberties of others."
[I elided the end of the reader's comment because I disagree with it. The reader concluded, "it certainly does not make her obligated to take up the cause of this community’s self-inflicted health problems" (my emphasis). "They asked for it?" No more than a multitude of voluntary activities which have downsides as well as upsides. The liberal spirit is a spirit of toleration, of being, as a version of the OED said, "generous in respect to the opinions, rights, or liberties of others." There is no place for what Frederick C. Crews called the "reckless dispensation of guilt."]
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