Something odd stuck out at me in the comment thread on my post asking whether Sally Ride was cowardly for not being an advocate for gay rights: some of those most harsh on Ride’s choice were commenting anonymously or pseudonymously.
To be sure, there’s nothing particularly hypocritical in a coward pointing out that someone else is also a coward, especially if that other person is being singled out as a hero. Still, one would think that people who have decided—perhaps for perfectly legitimate reasons—that commenting on a political blog under their own name isn’t worth the risk of blowback would feel a certain sympathy for a scientist-astronaut who values her privacy deciding not to tell the world she was gay.
