Op-Ed: Iceland to get first gay PM. So what?

A headline that announces that an openly gay Icelandic woman has been chosen as Prime Minister flashed across the computer screen today.

The headline on BBC News was to the effect that Iceland is to have ‘the modern world’s first openly gay leader’. Stop press indeed. How futile and facile a news item that states that somewhere in the world, in this case Iceland, someone with a particular sexual proclivity, in this case homosexual, is chosen to become Prime Minister. The mind boggles. Are not Johanna Sigurdardottir’s non-sexual talents and capabilities of more relevance to the Icelandic voter? Does the hard-working citizen really need to be aware that the new Prime Minister is not hetero-sexual? Who cares? We don’t live in the stone ages any more. Whether a politician is gay or straight should be of no interest at all. I wonder how the world’s media assume that its consumers are in nonsensical items such as whether an elected official likes men or women. Are politicians perhaps more than other people defined by their sexuality? The British press is always keen to dig up sexual shenanigans of members of parliament and officials but there will always be a more lurid focus from some of the less discerning news outlets. Shocking news on the BBC: someone is gay. Big deal.