Bravo to Neil Patrick Harris for his statement in People.
But just for the record, a couple points worth noting.
Even though Neil refers to 'those who choose to publish their opinions without actually talking to me,' an apparent reference to Perez Hilton, the thing that kicked all this off was an item at Canada.com on Monday. And had Perez even spoken to Neil, would he have come out to Perez? Neil's done hundreds of interviews, and surely he's been asked about his love life.
According to a thread at IMDB, Neil in the past has made statements that clearly indicate he was straight: 'I'm very turned on by British women. ... I'm very into Kate Winslet now' and 'I'm a hopeless romantic. I think that suddenly she'll appear across the room ... right then I'll know that's it.' Clearly, that was evasive and misleading at the very least.
For those who say, 'Who cares?' when a celebrity comes out, like Lance Bass or T.R. Knight or now Neil Patrick Harris, a lot of people do, or else people wouldn't be in the closet to begin with. PalJoey is right: It isn't easy to be out, especially when agents, publicists, managers, etc., insist it's career suicide, but as time goes by, one can only hope that being gay is treated simply as a fact of life, which it is, not as a whispered secret.
The original Neil Patrick Harris item at Canada.com