IRELAND: Health Minister Comes Out

Via the Irish Times:

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has come out publicly this morning, saying he is a “gay man”. “I am a gay man, it’s not a secret, but not something that everyone would necessarily know but isn’t something I’ve spoken publicly about before,” he told Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1. “It’s not something that defines me,”he said. “I’m not a half-Indian politician, or a doctor politician or a gay politician for that matter. It’s just part of who I am, it doesn’t define me, it is part of my character I suppose”. Across the course of a wide-ranging interview, in which the Dublin West TD discussed his Indian heritage, struggling with an introverted nature and an ambition to leave politics after another 15 years, Mr Varadkar said he wanted to make clear there were no hidden agendas on his behalf going into the same-sex marriage referendum set for May this year. “There’s a referendum on marriage equality coming up too, and I just want to be honest with people. I was thinking about the arguments that I might make, and all the arguments that I was going to make were kind of detached” he said, speaking on his 36th birthday.

(Tipped by JMG reader Chaz)