Anderson Cooper hosted CNN's New Year's Eve celebration with Kathy Griffin on Tuesday and there was no shortage of hilarious (and controversial) momen...

As recently as 1989, tolerance for gays and gay jounalists was hardly prevalent. I would cringe at the gay jokes in the newsroom. A few years earlier I overheard a colleague tell a cameraman, "You better watch when you interview those gays. You don't want to catch AIDS, you know."

It is not Cooper who will clear the career paths for a new crop of out gay men and women; it is those journalists who paved the way for Anderson Cooper's career, which has been largely free of the burden of anti-gay discrimination. They are the original risk takers and role models.

Is someone who is straight (or closeted) any better able to cover a gay story? Every reporter has a long list of bias points. It is time we shatter this notion that being part of a minority group means you should not be able to cover that group.

Our Voice To Voice conversation series began in January with a collection of interviews between LGBT authors discussing their work, queer life and som...