Star Trek's Zachary Quinto comes out as gay

Actor Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, recently came out as a gay man in an interview with New York magazine's Benjamin Wallace. When asked about his thoughts on Occupy Wall Street, Quinto, who stars in the upcoming financial thriller Margin Call, spoke about the legalization of gay marriage in New York, as well as the recent suicide of bullied gay teenager Jamey Rodemeyer:

_{It seems like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street — there’s such tremendous disparity right now. It’s like, you have the legalization of gay marriage in the state of New York and three months later you have Jamey Rodemeyer killing himself, yet another gay teenager bullied into taking his own life. And, you know, again, as a gay man, I look at that and say there’s a hopelessness that surrounds it. But as a human being, I look at it and say, “Why? Where is this disparity coming from and why can’t we as a culture, as a society, dig deeper to examine it?” We’re terrified of facing ourselves, we’re terrified of what we’ll find and so, instead, we seem to waste time and energy with small-mindedness and intolerance and with bigotry and with hatred and with fear.}  

Since his breakthrough role as serial killer Sylar on Heroes, there has been much speculation in the media about Quinto's sexual orientation. Although he has played a series of gay roles and publicly supported gay-rights issues — even filming a video for the "It Gets Better" project — he has not previously commented on his sexuality, or publicly identified as gay. Hopefully Quinto — who wrote in a blog post that Rodemeyer's death motivated his decision to come out — will inspire others to follow suit.