"The worst discrimination has come from closeted gay men"

To the Guardian, Mark Harold wrote a letter and said, "The worst discrimination has come from closeted gay men." Following an interview with Lord Browne, the Guardian (@guardian) asked readers to share their stories about coming out as LGBT in the workplace. Here's what Mark Harold said in full:

"I am a senior executive of a FTSE 100 company in my early 50s, and have been out at work since my mid-30s. The worst discrimination I’ve come across has come from closeted gay men. They live with insidious lies, and are often ruthless in protecting those lies. It’s important that gay men support each other, so the more who come out of the closet in business, the better."

The story of Sam “Skelly” McCrory is remarkable. This is a racist, sectarian, homophobic skin-head turned open and activist homosexual. He said to Henry McDonald in the Guardian:

"Even before I joined the UDA, I used to pretend I was homophobic. I went along with the crowd who were then close to the National Front. I hated Catholics, blacks, Jews and gays - even though I was gay myself. I was hiding my true self. I used to lie to the rest of C Company that I was having a relationship with a policewoman. Only Johnny knew it was a man. The lads used to ask me "Who's that policewoman you are shagging?" I couldn't tell them it was a man, it was such a macho, homophobic culture."

Paul Berry of DUP was a similar character. A religious loud-mouth and virulent homophobic... who was caught with a rent boy. Wikipedia reports it like this:

"Just days before the [2005] election, the Sunday World newspaper claimed that [Paul] Berry had met a man for a massage, with whom he had made initial contact via a gay chatroom, in a Belfast hotel room booked by Berry under a false name. Berry claimed that he was seeking treatment for a sports injury, and said he was considering legal action against the paper. He was not elected and was the only DUP candidate to experience a fall in their share of the vote in favour of the Ulster Unionist Party. 

Weeks later the DUP who, since 1977 have maintained a Christian fundamentalist stance on gay rights, and launched a campaign known as Save Ulster from Sodomy, suspended Berry from membership and commenced disciplinary proceedings. Berry launched a legal challenge but in February 2006 dropped these proceedings and resigned from the party."