CNN's Don Lemon on Monday: I'm Gay

CNN anchor Don Lemon has come out and, a HuffingtonPost.com story that posted at 7:36 this morning already had 3,958 comments as of 7:22 p.m. about it. On Facebook Monday evening, several Cascade Patch fans were posting comments about it as well.

According to the Huffington Post, Lemon, 45, talks about his life and his sexuality in his new book, "Transparent," and he revealed that he is gay in an interview with the New York Times.

In a tweet on Sunday night, the story states that Lemon—who has anchored in a variety of roles for CNN—linked to the Times article and wrote, "wanted to be the firs to share with u. thanks for your support!!!"

While Lemon's memoir also covers his journalism career, he's prepared for much of the reaction to focus on more personal matters, which include growing up without a father and his revelation that he was sexually abused as a child.

In his book, Lemon writes of having lived with "dark, ugly secrets" that took him years to bring into the light.

Being black made being gay feel even worse, he said in an interview Monday, "because of how the black community perceives a gay person. An African-American male is taught that he has to be masculine.

"And our community is steeped in religion, with the church preaching against homosexuality. I prayed a lot growing up that I would change, that I would be straight," he said. "But no matter how good I was, how much I prayed and denied what I was, it was always there."

By coming out, Lemon becomes one of a tiny number of openly gay anchors on television; the list also includes Rachel Maddow and Thomas Roberts, both of MSNBC.

In the interview, Lemon said that he has never hidden his sexuality from his co-workers at CNN, but decided to take a more public step after he felt that he could not write an inspirational book without being open about who he is.

Lemon also said that he was "scared," because he was talking about things that "people might shun me for." He said that he was particularly concerned about what the reaction in the black community would be. At one point, Lemon got so nervous that he thought about removing the parts of the book that dealt with his sexuality, but he changed his mind.

Lemon has been a reporter and anchor at CNN since 2006. On Monday, he was scheduled to give several interviews on the network about his revelation.

“I think it would be great if everybody could be out,” he told the Times. “...I think if I had seen more people like me who are out and proud, it wouldn’t have taken me 45 years to say it, to walk in the truth.”

-- HuffingtonPost.com reports were used for this story.