Parting Glances: Odds on coming out!

My favorite coming out story concerns a computer hacker — actually a brilliant graphic designer — named Dennis who works in California for a publisher of science texts. We chanced to meet at Motor City Pride 2008 after many, many years.
When in his sackcloth-and-ashes twenties Dennis studied for the Russian Orthodox priesthood. (Doctrinal attitude toward homosexuality same — closeted — as Roman Catholic Church.)
As a candidate he soon found himself emotionally attracted to other men on the same spiritual path. And presumably because Dennis was handsome — still is, in a patriarchal, bearded way — one or two of his student brothers found him a possible venue for a "special friendship."
For that reason of frustrating same-sex distraction Dennis decided a priest's life was really not his cup of Oolong tea, with or without a sidecar shot or two of Stoli vodka. (He left his religious studies without letting his right hand know what his left hand wasn't doing — as far as gay sex practicum was concerned.)
If you can't serve the Almighty reasoned Dennis, do the next best thing. Join the State Department. It helped that Dennis was fluent in Russian and — though not married or possessed of an evenly remotely believable girlfriend — still virginal.
Seemingly a new career door was ajar. That is until Dennis was asked to take a lie detector test as a routine matter of application. "Have you ever had sexual relations with a man?" "No!" said Dennis, telling the gospel truth. Alas, the recording marker waltzed all over the graph sheet. (In his case it mazurka'd.) Virgin or not, he was now unwittingly out in both sense of the word.
(Decades earlier in the mid-1950s, a State Department witch hunt resulted in the firing of over 500 suspected homosexuals, all deemed security risks and subject to possible blackmail by Communist agitators and spies.)
"What the hell," says Dennis. "I'd never been in bed with a living soul other than myself. And that was a little too regimented. So I decided right then and there that if my sexual orientation was authenticated for me by the State Department, it was high time I got some action. With or without a national security clearance."
On the subject of coming out, the first recorded act of public self-acceptance happened over 450 years ago. The honor goes to one Giovanni Bazzi (surely you've heard of him?), an Italian High Renaissance artist and wealthy fashion plate who, although married and a father, collected exotic birds and equally exotic young men cavorting and/or flapping about his native Sienna.
Bazzi also painted nude male saints for which, according to art historians in the know, there happened to be a ready market. (Thank heaven, Mary, for the martyrdom of St. Sebastian!)
Neighbors said Bazzi "loved more than was decent," and friends nicknamed him "Il Sodoma." The sodomite. (When I was a Cass Tech High School art student, I learned of Il Sodoma in our introductory art history class. A passing but unmistakable reference. Our teacher, Mr. Donald Brackett, winked knowingly, grunted, and we gay students zeroed in. "Please pass the Il Sodoma," we ordered each other at lunchtime.)
Bazzi also kept racehorses. One of these gaily festooned fillies won an important race. Bazzi insisted that the winning be trumpeted throughout the city loudly with his nickname. Il Sodoma! Il Sodoma! Shortly thereafter another filly, his daughter Faustina — demonstrating 16th century all-in-the-family values — married the painter's favorite boyfriend, model, and jockey for a little competitive riding of her own. Faustina! Faustina!
Win, place, and show me yours!