Signorile Slams Advocate Over Naming Pope Francis The Person Of The Year

“The Advocate magazine put Pope Francis on its cover, proclaiming him the Person of the Year, offering a myriad of reasons why it passed up others, such as Edie Windsor. The best thing about this is that Francis has a ‘NoH8’ decal Photoshopped onto his face, and it’s driving poor Bill Donohue of the Catholic League into a blood-vessel-popping rage. But mostly, this was idiotic. Pope Francis is a lot of things to many people in the world. But he is not our hero of the LGBT community in 2013. Can we please get a grip, folks? Are we that starved for validation? [snip] Sure, we should note that Francis has made some relatively supportive statements toward gays this year, but to make Francis the person of the year for the LGBT community, when so many others have worked tirelessly to advance equality, is silly and seems like a PR move by the Advocate to get attention. Bravo for them, they got it. How it advances LGBT rights and upholds our credibility when we give out honors so lightly, however, is another matter.” – Michelangelo Signorile, writing for the Huffington Post.