(Reuters) – Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook yesterday became the most prominent American corporate leader to come out as gay, saying he was trading his closely guarded privacy for the chance to help move civil rights forward.
The 53-year-old Alabama native and self-described “son of the South”, who has spoken out against discrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, declared his sexual orientation in a magazine editorial, confirming a fact widely known in the close-knit Silicon Valley tech community but rarely discussed.
Cook’s announcement comes as gay marriage is becoming widespread, but the nation remains divided over gay rights. Same-sex marriage is legal in thirty-two U.S. states and in polls a majority support same-sex marriage, with a clear generational divide between younger Americans who are more likely to support it and older ones who are less likely.
“I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” Cook said in an article he wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek. (http://buswk.co/ 1DBoBfo)
He invoked civil rights luminaries Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King in his long essay.
“I don’t pretend that writing this puts me in their league. All it does is allow me to look at those pictures and know that I’m doing my part, however small, to help others. We pave the sunlit path toward justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick.”
The fact the chief executive of the most valuable U.S. publicly traded company felt he could disclose his sexual preference in such a public way, and with the backing of the company’s chairman, shows how times have changed.
Former BP Chief Executive Lord Browne, who kept his sexual orientation secret for decades, was forced to come out after a boyfriend made it public in 2007. He later resigned.
“By deciding to speak publicly about his sexuality, Tim Cook has become a role model, and will speed up changes in the corporate world,” Browne said in an email to Reuters on Thursday.
Cook, who cuts an easy-going figure at Apple’s product launches, is an intensely private person. On Thursday, he wrote that it was this desire to keep his personal life private that had held him back until now.
