Kristy McNichol has come out as a lesbian — in order to help people.

Do me a favor and read that sentence again. In a rational world, that string of words would make no sense whatsoever. In a reasonable society, the apropos-of-nothing proclamations of a 1970s child star and all-but-forgotten TV actress wouldn't even be interesting, much less beneficial. In the universe I'd like to one day inhabit, no one would care about the sexual preferences of a woman whose face you probably can't even picture.

I have nothing against Kristy McNichol. As a girl, I had a poster of her and her brother Jimmy, whose feathered mane, hairless chest, gold chain necklace, and loving proximity to his all-American tomboy sister made him precisely effeminate enough to be irresistibly, nonthreateningly attractive to a 7-year-old girl. (Oh, the ironies.)

But it disappoints me that Kristy can release a statement a third of a century later saying she's a lady lover and it makes the damned news cycle. Who cares if Kristy McNichol is into girls? Who cares if the Osmond brothers like to dress up in women's clothing (I made that up, don't sue me) or if a young Danny Bonaduce ran a prostitution ring out of his Partridge Family trailer (I made that up, too, but would you be surprised if it were true?).