Jeanne Phillips, daughter of Pauline
Phillips and the writer of the advice column Dear Abby, has
said homophobes should be ashamed.
In an appearance on Gwissues,
Phillips told host Howard Bragman that her advice column, which her
mother started, reaches close to 100 million people every day.
She said that she was influenced on the
issue of gay rights by her mother.
“I don't think it's right to blame
people for who they are,” Phillips said, adding that being gay was
just as natural for gay people as being straight was for straight
people.
“I think that the subject is on the
minds and out of the mouths of people more than ever before, which I
think is a healthy thing,” she said of gay issues.
It's “very important for all of us,
gay or straight, to live an authentic life. You have to be who you
are. And if you have negative people around you, change the people
around you. … Because you have to accept who you are. And people
do better when they're around people who accept them for who they
are.”
“Don't be ashamed of who you are.
Who you are is just fine. [It's] the people who are being so
critical and so closed-minded who need to be ashamed,” she added.
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