Mr. Sulu Comes Out

And to think of the decades of Kirk/Spock slash that fanboys and fangirls have labored over.

"You know, it's not really coming out," Takei says in the Nov. 22 issue of the Los Angeles-based gay and lesbian magazine Frontiers (www.FrontiersPublishing.com). "It's more like a long, long walk through what began as a narrow corridor that starts to widen."

Takei, a Japanese-American who lived in a U.S. internment camp from age 4 to 8, said he grew up feeling ashamed of his ethnicity and sexuality. He likened prejudice against gays to racial segregation.

"It's against basic decency and what American values stand for," he said.