This is a weird headline. Ok the guy really is a Batman researcher. I’m not sure why it was so important to mention that the Batman co-creator’s son was gay though, unless that was somehow relevant to the creation process or his life experience or something.

So you're unsure how an artist's kid might influence their creative process or life experience?

I think the question is why/how the sexual orientation is relevant. The same as skin color etc, that seems irrelevant to me.

In this specific case what makes the discovery of a grandaughter of the author a massive surprise and plot twost is that her father was gay.

That’s what make his sexual orientation be relevant here: it explains why nobody expected there would be living descendants of the author and why her discovery was such a massive plot twist.

Whilst I agree that people’s sexual orientation is irrelevant in most stories (no matter which way it goes, by the way), in this specific case it absolutelly is relevant to explain the behaviour and expectations of other participants in the story up to the point when the grandaughter was discovered.

You had a great point until you reinforced the idea that one’s identity is irrelevant in artistic expression. That’s just kind of wild to me.

I’m culturally very dutch, having lived there for almost a decade at a key point of my life, so from my point of view all sexual orientations are absolutelly normal, same as, for example, eye color - only wierdos would ever treat people differently based on eye color, sexual orientation or any such things.

From my point of view the continued emphasising of the differences but with a different “tone” that some in anglo-saxon cultures think of as “progressive” is actually culturally backwards, as for me the ideal world is one were people don’t get classified, put in little boxes and judged and treated differently on things they were born with.

So yeah, when all sexual orientations are normal there is about as much need to point them out when not relevant as there is a need to point out the color of they eyes of somebody when not relevant.

I can understand that from your cultural environment the visible reflections of my own “only wierdoes emphasise absolutelly normal things” posture might be confused with the kind of thinly disguised “anti-gay” sentiment the types who in your own culture are seen as backwards put out, as you’re still in an environment were the fight for equality is done by keeping on classifying people on things they were born with and emphasising whenever you can in a positive way certain classifications, hence it’s only natural to from that worldview perceive those who don’t do that to be as anti-gay.

(I was hoping that my logical argumentation approach on my original post hinted at were I was coming from, but I guess it didn’t for everybody)