Lindsay Lohan might be gay, too. (Her answer during a radio interview was noncommittal enough to leave room for “clarifications” later.) Big yawn.

You know what would be news? It would be news to learn that a well-known pop star called People magazine to say “I’m gay!” and People responded with a “So what?” I long for the day when a star’s coming out is not worthy of magazine space, much less a cover story.

We have not yet reached that day.

Clay Aiken’s coming out was about as surprising as Elton John’s, only less courageous. (Remember that John came out 20 years ago, at the height of the AIDS crisis, when gay sex was still illegal in many parts of this country.) For years, certain bloggers have referred to Aiken as “Gayken,” a practice as lazy as it is childish. An online poll revealed that 96 percent of respondents were not surprised by his announcement.

The other 4 percent, presumably, also insist that Liberace was merely “artistic.”

I certainly don’t mean to criticize Aiken for his honesty, and I can’t blame him for wanting to capitalize on it with a cover story. I have no idea what People paid him for the scoop, if anything, but I suspect he got more than I did when I came out in an op-ed in my college paper. (I think they gave me a coupon for a free pizza.)

Incidentally, that was in 1989, a year after Elton John came out as gay. It was harder then, no doubt because so few public figures had done it.

Aiken’s coming out adds to that growing list of public figures, and for that we should be thankful. There are interesting dimensions to his story, including his identifying as a born-again Christian and his generally wholesome image. (My late grandmother, like many grandmothers, adored him on American Idol.)

Some might hope that his revelation will reach a demographic not otherwise friendly to gay issues, reminding them that we truly are everywhere. I’m skeptical. Aiken just had a child out of wedlock, via artificial insemination, with a much older female friend. His fellow born-again Christians will likely see him less as a role-model than as a cautionary tale.

So if progressives shrug and traditionalists scold, what can Aiken’s coming out teach us? Two things, I think.

First, that if you’re going to use the “My sexual orientation is private and none of your business” line, as Aiken did repeatedly, then don’t be surprised if few care when you announce your gayness on the cover of People.

Aiken is hardly alone in exploiting the ambiguity of the claim that sexual orientation is “private.” Private in the sense of being deeply personal and deserving of non-interference? Absolutely. Private in the sense of being secret? Only if you insist on making it so.

That was Aiken’s right, of course. But it was also our right to notice his doing it. It was not our right to nag him about it—he was young, and still figuring it all out—but it was our right to refuse to go along with treating gayness as somehow unspeakable. Aiken’s story underscores how the convention of the closet is crumbling. This is progress.

The second thing his coming out teaches us is that while simple honesty is good, it is no longer enough. It may be enough (for now) to get you on the cover of People, but it’s not enough, I’ll wager, to get readers rushing to the newsstands.

I’m surprised, frankly, that it’s still enough to get you on the cover of People—even if you are the most famous American Idol runner-up ever (my grandmother went to her grave insisting that Ruben had robbed him of the rightful title) and you have a cute baby in an unconventional family arrangement. I don’t expect People to be The Economist, but I do expect something fresher and more stimulating than “Yes, I’m Gay.”

And so let me close with a plea to our LGBT organizations. For the love of Jehovah, don’t invite Aiken to headline fundraising dinners or pride events unless and until he actually does something more to advance gay rights.

“Yes, I’m Gay” may be enough to impress People. It should no longer be enough to impress us.

And that, too, is progress.

John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.

For over 15 years he has traveled the country speaking on homosexuality and ethics. His writing has been featured in regional and national periodicals, at the online Independent Gay Forum , and in numerous scholarly anthologies. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.

For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.

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Catch John Corvino as he lectures on gay rights and debates same-sex marriage with Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family:

September 30: Concordia College (Moorhead, MN) 9 pm Knutson Campus Center-Centrum October 6: Minnesota State University-Mankato 7 pm Ostrander Auditorium, Centennial Student Union October 7: Northern Kentucky University (DEBATE) 7 pm Greaves Hall October 9: Vincennes University (IN) 11 am Shircliff Theater October 14: Bridgewater State College (MA) 2 pm Moakley Auditorium October 22: Sienna Heights University (Adrian, MI) Details TBA October 23: Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo) 7:30 pm Kirsch Auditorium October 30: Canisius College (DEBATE) (Buffalo NY) 7 pm Regis Conference Room

Lohan and Ronson called into the radio show Loveline to chat with DJ Ted Stryker about DJ AM’s recent survival of a plane crash that killed four other passengers.

In wrapping up the conversation, Stryker casually asked Lindsay on air, “Now, you guys, you and Samantha have been going out for how long now? Like two years? One year? Five months? Two months?” Lohan responded, “A long…a very long time.”

“I hope you guys stay together, you’re a very lovely looking couple,” Stryker added, to which Lindsay replied, “Thank you very much.”

Lohan and Ronson are among only a handful of high-profile American celebrities in same-sex relationships, including women like Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Paulson, Cherry Jones, Suze Orman, Heather Matarazzo, Leisha Hailey, and Michelle Paradise. At 22 and 31, respectively, Lohan and Ronson are among the youngest out lesbian celebrity couples in America.

In a editorial on AfterEllen.com last week called “Lindsay Lohan and the New Definition of ‘Out‘”, we profiled Lohan and Ronson as an example of a new wave of same-sex couples who are re-defining the notion of what being “out” means.

Lohan and Ronson have accompanied each other almost everywhere for over two years now, attend public events together, wear matching rings, kiss in public, and have had their relationship captured in countless photographs. They have even spoken out together against Gov. Sarah Palin’s anti-gay stance.

They have done everything but verbally confirm their relationship — until now.

Lohan and Ronson at TV Guide’s Sixth Annual Emmys After Party

But does acknowledging the relationship with words still matter in an era in which the grocery-shopping, event-attending, ring-wearing and hand-holding behavior of same-sex couples is now reported on almost as often as heterosexual couples?

While saying it out loud is arguably no longer a requirement to being out, words still have power — especially to the vast majority of straight Americans for whom the presumption of heterosexuality is so great they simply won’t believe a same-same relationship is true unless it is openly declared.

This is one of the reasons Ellen de Generes and Portia de Rossi’s “Wal-Mart wedding” makes such a difference — it makes the romantic nature of their relationship both appealing and unavoidable to mainstream America.

Lohan’s simple and low-key verbal confirmation of what most lesbian and bi women already knew may well do the same for a younger generation.

I stopped keeping up with media’s obsessive coverage of 22-year-old Lindsay Lohan a few years ago, just before she entered rehab for the first time.

It wasn’t just because I lost interest in Lohan. In the last few years, the press has become obsessed with reporting on, and arguably creating, depressing news stories about young women engaged in self-destructive or self-obsessed behavior.

Television shows, entertainment and gossip websites, newspapers and magazines were overflowing with reports on Britney Spears’s marriage troubles, ongoing custody problems, and career missteps; the latest feud between Paris Hilton and her Simple Life co-star Nicole Richie; or Lohan’s public battle with her father, her drinking problems, and her inability to show up to work on time.

Around that time on AfterEllen.com, I instituted what I only semi-jokingly referred to as the "no Britney, Paris, or Lindsay" rule, which was intended to keep our writers from covering these topics (and others like them) on the site. Not only because they’re boring, annoying, and repetitive, but because I don’t take pleasure from reading or writing about young women self-destructing.

So when the first rumors and photos began circulating about a relationship between Lohan and 31-year-old DJ Samantha Ronson a few years ago, I ignored them — because of the aforementioned rule, and because I was skeptical.

As the months wore on and the stories persisted, I realized there might be some truth to the rumors, after all, but thought Lohan was just doing the bi-for-show thing that I have seen so many female celebrities do over the years (see: t.A.T.u, Drew Barrymore, Madonna, Bai Ling, etc.).

I began to reconsider recently when it finally became clear to me that the two were most likely involved in a serious relationship, and that Lohan had begun to turn her life around. She is now working successfully again (guesting on Ugly Betty, starring in the indie film Labor Pains), and instead of stories about DUIs, rehab, and workplace reprimands, the tabloids and gossip blogs only have Lohan’s ongoing feud with her father and speculation about her relationship with Ronson to write about. (OK, and still the occasional punching of a paparazzo — Rome wasn’t built in a day).

Ugly Betty co-star star Eric Mabius told OK! magazine this week that the actress was "fun to work with" and that "it was nice to see her girlfriend Sam visiting the set and offering her that support."

Lohan with Ronson at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week
on Sept. 6, 2008

All of which is good news, but puts me and other entertainment journalists with ethics (yes, we do exist) in a bit of a quandary.