The Necessity of the Closet

It's undeniable that it was the institution of the closet which was responsible for the sad end to Lord Browne's career. On the other hand, is it simply far too simplistic, bordering on the moralistic, to say that the BP CEO should simply have come out? Matthew Parris has a good point today:

There really is a lingering problem about homosexuality and business. When Lord Browne told his shaving mirror, that it was not in the interests of BP’s shareholders that his gay private lifestyle became public property, he was not imagining the problem. One can only imagine what Vladimir Putin thinks about gays – but this was a statesman whose confidence Browne (and BP) needed. The Arab and Muslim world has no problem with secret homosexuality, but every kind of problem with acknowleged and proclaimed homosexuality.
Friends of mine in business tell me that we in the world of the media and politics, where attitudes towards homosexuality have shifted fast, do not realise as we page onward from news and comment, and into the business section, that we are moving into a different world, some of whose cultural values would shock us.

There's no easy solution to this dilemma. The head of an oil company will have to deal with Russians and Arabs and all manner of people who would be abhorred at the idea of dealing with an openly gay man. That in and of itself is good reason for the board of an oil company not to promote an openly gay man to the top job. If you're a gay man on an upward trajectory in an oil company, then, it benefits both you and your company to stay in the closet. On the other hand, as we've seen, the closet in and of itself is a destructive institution.

If there is hope, it comes from Parris's reference to "media and politics, where attitudes towards homosexuality have shifted fast". He's in the UK, of course, where politicians are learning that coming out is not political suicide. The US hasn't got that far yet. But it will. And if politics can slowly move to becoming as accepting as the media, then business can slowly move to becoming accepting as well. But these things will, unfortunately, take time.

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