ABC anchor Dan Kloeffler on Monday came
out gay while reporting a World News Now story on Zachary
Quinto's coming out gay.
Quinto, who is best known for playing a
young Spock in the 2009 J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek reboot,
came
out gay on Sunday in an interview with New
York Magazine. The 34-year-old Quinto later revealed that he
was inspired to come out by Jamey Rodemeyer, the 14-year-old
Buffalo-area student who committed suicide last month after being
bullied for coming out gay.
In reporting the story, Kloeffler
turned to co-anchor Yunji de Nies and said, “He's 34, I'm 35. I'm
thinking I could lose my distraction about dating actors.” (The
video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
Kloeffler expanded on his coming out in
a blog post.
“I've never shared that I'm gay
on-air, even though I've been out to my family, friends and
co-workers for years,” he wrote. “In fact, an old boyfriend –
now best friend – has always given me a hard time about not doing
so. But for the same reason that Zach decided to come out, I too, no
longer wanted to hide this part of my life.”
“There have been too many tragic
endings and too many cases of bullying because of intolerance. As a
kid I wanted someone to look up to, someone that could related to the
feelings I was having. Most of all, I wanted to know that it would
get better.”
“As a journalist, I don't want to be
the story, but as a gay man I don't want to stand silent if I can
offer some inspiration or encouragement to kids that might be
struggling with who they are,” Kloeffler added.