I don’t normally watch Larry King Live on CNN, but the TV choices last week were slim and I found myself channel surfing on Wednesday night. When I saw that Suze Orman was Larry’s guest, I decided to sample a bit of the show.
As you may know, Suze came out in a New York Times Magazine interview last year in what had to be one of the biggest non-story coming out stories of the year. Although our friends at Queercents blogged about it, I think a lot of folks missed it, and I doubt that many of even her most ardent fans are aware that she’s a lesbian and has apparently been in a committed relationship for some time. The coverage of that announcement was pretty low-key and there wasn’t lots of follow-up after the fact.
I haven’t followed Suze’s career that closely since that announcement, but from what I have observed, she has kept a fairly low personal profile since the story appeared. In keeping with the matter-of-fact way that she seems to address most things, she has just been working and talking about personal finance issues as usual.
That changed on Wednesday’s Larry King Live broadcast. In a conversation about politics and the presidential candidates she prefers, Suze said “it’s no secret that I’m in a same-sex relationship and have been for a long time” and proceeded to talk about how important it was for her personally to have a president in the White House who would make it easier for her to have the same rights to leave her estate to her partner without paying estate tax. It was a moment of candor made all the more remarkable by how matter of fact it was. No fanfare, no big announcement, just a statement about who she is and why the issues matter to her personally within the context of a broader "non-gay" conversation.
Beyond the obvious political implications of Suze’s statement (click here to watch the broadcast – the comment above is at about 5:45 on the video clock), I think the more important observation is the potential impact of an individual like Suze Orman talking about gay financial issues in “mainstream” conversations and interviews.
Sure, a lot of financial marketers have figured out that we’re a lucrative target for their services, but they’re generally “mainstream” companies trying to convince us that we should entrust them with our money and/or financial futures. And their outreach to our community doesn’t have the same impact as one of our own talking about our community in front of largely straight audiences.
Not only is Suze one of us, but her audience is the mainstream, straight American who probably doesn’t think one way or the other about gay people because they’re more worried about their own finances. Suze’s willingness to talk about her community/our community as part of this broader conversation will have a much bigger impact on gay and lesbian communications than all of the gay and lesbian financial planning advertising campaigns combined.
I’ve always respected Suze’s financial acumen, but now I’m a fan. And now I’ll be watching to see if this helpful trend continues and hoping that it does.
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Ben: Thanks for the link. Many of us at Queercents were happy when Suze finally came out. And now, I think it’s good for mainstream America to hear her talking about the financial inequities that we face as gays and lesbians in long-term partnerships. She gives a gay face to money and that can only help raise the importance of the change that is needed.
As an aside, Susie Bright wrote an engaging guest post recently called Susie Bright on Suze Orman: The Lesbian Approach to Getting Rich. If interested, click on my name below to read it.
Hi Nina. It’s good to hear your perspective. Thanks, too, for the reminder about Susie Bright’s guest post. I actually read it (along with all of the comments by your team) last night before I posted today because I wanted to see what others thought.Good stuff! Keep up the great work at http://www.queercents.com.
What I think makes Suze Orman even more of a class act is that prior to coming out she didn’t avoid questions about sexual orientation like the plague – as many in the public eye do. I recently read her book The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke in which she refers to “your partner” instead of “your wife / husband / spouse”. Instead of making homosexuals feel like the exception or outsiders Suze does a great job of speaking about same sex partners as completely normal and unexceptional – as they should be. All of this in a book published 2 years prior to her coming out.
Hi Steven. You make a good point and I appreciate the insight (I guess I’ll have to read the book now, huh?). Thanks for reading and commenting – please keep it up. And I’ll be sure to check out your site as well.