Wherever he’s reporting from the world’s war zones and disaster sites, veteran CNN anchor Anderson Cooper makes the story about the people whose lives and livelihoods have been lost. He does not make himself the story. In an email Monday to The Dish blogger and longtime friend Andrew Sullivan, Cooper takes a stand. “Andrew, as you know, the issue you raise is one that I’ve thought about for years,” Cooper writes. “The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.” Cooper says that in a time when people are still treated differently for saying that they love someone of the same sex, the famously private reporter has decided that “visibility is important, more important than preserving my reporter’s shield.”