{"id":3543,"date":"2010-05-11T09:19:17","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T09:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html"},"modified":"2010-05-11T09:19:17","modified_gmt":"2010-05-11T09:19:17","slug":"kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html","title":{"rendered":"Kristin Chenoweth Defends Gays to Newsweek"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"kristinchenowethpicic.jpg\"<\/span>
\nTony winner and sometimes controversial Christian celebrity Kristin Chenoweth <\/a>has always been a defender of gay rights – even when it has cost her support in the Christian community- and now she is speaking out against an article <\/a>in a recent issue of Newsweek magazine. She wrote a particularly heated reply <\/a>to a writer who believes that many gay actors can’t pull off heterosexual romantic leading roles, even while it seems to be no problem for straight actors to play gay roles. One of the examples the writer picks on is Sean Hayes, Chenoweth’s co-star in the current Broadway production of “Promises, Promises.” Now the Broadway pixie with a powerhouse voice is calling him “horrendously homophobic.” And that’s just the beginning of her tart-tongued comeback.<\/p>\n


\nNot only does Chenoweth gush about Hayes’s talent as her leading man in the musical in her letter but she correlates the archaic theory presented by the article’s author with treating gay people similarly to the way Jews have been treated by society in the past. In her letter she states, “For example, there was a time when Jewish actors had to change their names because anti-Semites thought no Jew could convincingly play Gentile.”
\nI appreciate that Chenoweth, in her own spunky way, tries to move the dialogue forward regarding gays and the evangelical community from time to time.I am just not sure I would have made this particular argument in doing so. With Neil Patrick Harris, Hayes, and many other “out” gay actors having successful careers, it’s getting harder and harder to argue Hollywood might be going out of its way to discriminate against gay actors who are looking for work – or that audiences aren’t finding their portrayals of straight characters convincing.
\nThe era of anti-Semitism that Chenoweth is referring to was decades ago, and perhaps a stronger case would have been made if she had made the comparison instead to all of the Hollywood Christians in the 80s and 90s , pre-“Passion” era who worried about keeping their faith on the down-low for fear it would hurt their careers.
\nEither way, the writer of the Newsweek article has had a history in the press of what some might refer to as gay-bashing and doesn’t seem to be taken too seriously, so, Kristin, relax, and let’s not give this man any more free publicity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kristin Chenoweth resents an author’s attack on gay actors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrities","category-entertainment"],"yoast_head":"\nKristin Chenoweth Defends Gays to Newsweek<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kristin Chenoweth Defends Gays to Newsweek\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kristin Chenoweth resents an author's attack on gay actors.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-11T09:19:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kristinchenowethpicic.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kris Rasmussen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Kristin Chenoweth Defends Gays to Newsweek","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Kristin Chenoweth Defends Gays to Newsweek","og_description":"Kristin Chenoweth resents an author's attack on gay actors.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2010-05-11T09:19:17+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kristinchenowethpicic.jpg"}],"author":"Kris Rasmussen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html","name":"Kristin Chenoweth Defends Gays to Newsweek","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kristinchenowethpicic.jpg","datePublished":"2010-05-11T09:19:17+00:00","dateModified":"2010-05-11T09:19:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/667195b00ac2263e0f6700056170bbf8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kristinchenowethpicic.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kristinchenowethpicic.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2010\/05\/kristin-chenoweth-defends-gays.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Kristin Chenoweth Defends Gays to Newsweek"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/667195b00ac2263e0f6700056170bbf8","name":"Kris Rasmussen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e7\/2e7278d93dd11c6aad2c82da37f0d657x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e7\/2e7278d93dd11c6aad2c82da37f0d657x96.jpg","caption":"Kris Rasmussen"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/krasmussen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}