Metro Weekly

Gay Clay Aiken nervously deflects importance of coming out [video]

”She had wanted kids. I had always wanted kids. Being a gay man, it wasn’t something for me that was going to be an option any other way…. But, at the same time, I have a son…. I can’t raise a son and teach him how to lie…

”You know, I think it’s obviously something that, in this day and age, people in my position don’t really have an opportunity to — to keep anything of theirs personal…. No, it’s not [a declaration], because I’m not making an announcement of any kind. I’m not coming and telling anybody anything. Speaking about it so that people will stop asking questions about it….

”We kind of look at it as a separated couple, in a way, who really loves each other and gets along…. There’s nothing different about [the way we raise our child], except in that we’re not married… We are raising a child, because we love the child….

”I still consider myself [a Southern Baptist]. But there’s a stereotype that Christians, and people who are religious are completely anti-gay, anti-this, anti-that. And I hate that! I hate that stereotype because I know so many people who are Chrsitians [who are] not representative of that stereotype.”

Singer Clay Aiken, who once came in second as a contestant on ”American Idol,” talking with Diane Sawyer on ”Good Morning America.” She tried to grill him on his coming out experience, but Aiken’s responses came across as elusive to Sawyer, probably because of his nervous laughter and unemotional facade except for an occasional annoyance at being told that, after years of avoiding his sexuality, his coming out was a big deal. He shares a new son with his female friend, Jaymes Foster, via artificial insemination He added that the first person he told was fellow ‘Idol’ contestant, Kimberly Locke. (GMA on ABC)

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