Meredith Baxter Birney Comes Out
Meredith Baxter Birney, 62, has announced that she is happily ensconced in a lesbian relationship. Baxter had had three marriages before her relationship with her current partner, Nancy Locke, 54. Baxter, the star of the 1980s hit sitcom Family Ties, started dating women seven years ago, but better late than never. She told People magazine, “I feel like I’m being honest for the first time.”
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
………..and the world continues to turn. I am more than sure that some people will inflate this way out of proportion. I for one, have enough to keep me busy just taking care of myself. If she is to be judged for her lifestyle that she has chosen then that is in the creator’s hands and nobody else. If she is happy, which she obviously is then I say, “Kudos to Meredith”. There doesn’t seem to be enough of that to go around these days.
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I’m happy for her, too.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:24 pm
So? And Tiger Woods has cheated on his wife. And Bill Clinton really did have sex with that woman”.
So what? Why do we care?
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
That’s odd – the report I read on Yahoo this afternoon quotes her as saying “People ask me if Ive been living a lie, and no, I haven’t.” But it’s not there now.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Oh! The quote’s in the article you linked to. It struck me since I know I’m nearing the age she had her revelation, and it suggests one can be hetero, convert, and that I might suddenly have a revelation of my own.
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:51 am
It is a beautiful thing when someone can live a normal life in their older years. Love is sacred. It is unfortunate though that the media had to disrupt her life for a moment, but as we all know, media rules our world.
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:17 am
sheesh, people! The only thing she “chose” was her behavior – the proclivity was there all along.
TheQueen, it does NOT “suggest one can be hetero [and] convert.” It suggests that one can be gay and not know enough about oneself to realize it and act on it. But good on you for taking away the idea that people are capable of having mid-life revelations that drastically improve the quality of their lives – that message from this should be celebrated by all us boomers.
Jo, from your language I can only assume you are straight. No self-respecting gay person would refer to it as a “lifestyle.” So, how’s that “heterosexual lifestyle” workin’ for ya?
~ hb33, waking up on the wrong side of the … um, never mind ~
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
I love you, Honeybee. Lifestyle, choice. Those words don’t work for me when it comes to talking about being gay or lesbian. It just IS.
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:16 am
I wrote a novel about a woman coming out late-in-life called Seeking Sara Summers. For these women it isn’t about getting their 15 minutes of fame (a criticism of Meredith Baxter on another site), it’s about getting a life. I think it takes a tremendous amount of courage to simply be who you are.
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
I may read your novel, writergabriel. Sounds cool.
December 6th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Is it just too “old-fashioned” or “hetero” of me to feel sorry for a woman who is a survivor of three straight marriages? Don’t you wonder why she kept putting herself through that…the same question I’d ask of a woman or man who did not come out in late life.
So much denial, so much pain.
December 7th, 2009 at 3:19 am
Bulloney, its all about a forgotten actress trying to kick start a dead career.