Son of Homophobic Professor Comes Out, Hoping to Help Others

Isaac Katz, the 22-year-old son of a physics professor whose anti-gay commentaries were cited when he was booted off a federally chosen team of scientists assessing the BP oil spill last spring, has himself publicly come out as gay in an essay submitted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The younger Mr. Katz said his essay was not meant to embarrass his father, Jonathan I. Katz, of Washington University in St. Louis, but was offered in the hope that an account of his struggles would help others, particularly in the light of several recent suicides of young people who had been bullied because of their sexual identity. Professor Katz declined to comment to the newspaper. As of Monday night, an essay titled “In Defense of Homophobia” remained on his university Web site.