Sulu plots a course out of the closet

George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu in the original Star Trek series and subsequent movies, has come out as a homosexual in the current issue of Frontiers, a Los Angeles GLBT magazine. "The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay," Takei told the Associated Press. "The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young." Takei, a Japanese-American, spent ages 4 to 8 in a U.S. internment camp and grew up feeling ashamed of his ethnicity and sexuality. The 68-year-old Takei still acts and also serves on the advisory committee of the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. Read the interview with Takei in Frontiers here.