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As well as institutional and governmental donors, the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum has been supported by generous individuals

Michael Huffington has long been a supporter of Salzburg Global Seminar; in fact, he follows in his father Roy’s footsteps. The elder Huffington was a long-term patron of the organization and served as chair of the board of directors for well over a decade. The Huffington Centennial Fund and the Huffington Family Foundation Endowment Fund continue to provide general financial support to Salzburg Global Seminar, and like his sister Terry, Michael has also chosen to give targeted funds for causes close to his heart. The Salzburg Global LGBT Forum was seeded thanks to a generous initial donation from Michael Huffington. At the fifth session of the Forum, held in May 2017, Huffington shared his life story as part of the long-running “Truth and Transformation” series, shedding light on why LGBT and human rights are such important issues for this philanthropist.

Michael Huffington grew up in 1950s Texas, USA, at a time when there were few openly LGBT people around, and when homosexuals were referred to with offensive slurs. He went through high school and college believing he was only attracted to girls. It wasn’t until he was 27 years old that he realized he also had an attraction to men. It was then that he had his first same sex experience. He recalls that he enjoyed it, but also that he couldn’t really understand what had just happened.

After his first experience with a man, Huffington mainly had girlfriends and only occasionally met guys during the next seven years. His experiences with men left him feeling guilty.

When the 1980s arrived, the AIDS epidemic came with it. The confusion and fear surrounding the virus led Huffington to stop having sex with men – something he would not do again until 18 years later. During this time, he fell in love and married Arianna Stassinopoulos in 1986, and he joined the Greek Orthodox Church during their marriage. He told her about his experiences with men before they married. She accepted him for who he was, and in their eleven years together they had two wonderful daughters.

In the early 1990s, Huffington rose to national prominence as a Republican congressman, particularly during his 1994 US Senate campaign which he narrowly lost. His was the most expensive non-Presidential election campaign in American history at that point. A couple of years later, he and his wife decided to divorce. By 1998, at 50 years old, he decided to come out as bisexual. He was a renowned public figure in California, but his decision went beyond politics, and instead was spiritually based.

His coming out made the national news, something that Huffington hopes was helpful for many others struggling with their sexual orientation.

“So when I knew that God created me in his image, I said ‘OK, I need to love myself and not be concerned about anything else but to live a truthful life and be honest.’ That’s when I decided to publicly come out. I didn’t realize how extensive the publicity would be. I did it because I wanted to help other younger people, because I had suffered through stages of being guilty about my own sexuality and it made a huge impact.”

He began supporting LGBT causes such as the work of the Annenberg School of Communications (University of Southern California) on “sexual orientation in the news” to influence a positive shift of LGBT portrayals in the media, and the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum to foster global conversations on and advance the struggle for LGBT rights.

Now, years after his coming out, Huffington feels happier than at any point of his youth. He considers himself to be truly bisexual, and he admires the younger generation’s use of the word “fluid.” To him, this is a beautiful concept that reminds us that the soul is genderless, and it is simply poured into a body that becomes irrelevant after our death.

For the philanthropist, coming out has been a crucial and necessary step in building the world as a place of love. For him, making this possible begins by loving and accepting ourselves, and over time, this love will spread to those around us.

Michael Huffington on his coming out, bisexuality and being created by God