Meredith Baxter, the actress best known for her role as the liberal matriarch Elyse Keaton on the hit ’80s TV show Family Ties, has come out as a lesbian. In an interview with The Advocate, the 62-year-old Baxter, who has been married three times and has been public about her alcoholism and dealing with breast cancer, says her first gay experience 13 years ago was a “revelation.” She reports her five grown children were accepting of her sexual orientation when she told them several years ago, though telling them “was absolute f–king agony for me, only in the respect that I was so fearful,” she says. She never denied her gayness, she says but was “circumspect” in her behaviour. What prompted her going public was the National Enquirer’s publication of photographs of her and her partner on a cruise. Reaction has been heartening, she says: “The message I get is that I’m America’s mom. And because research seems to show that people who have someone who is gay in their family—or a friend or just know someone in the community who is gay—they seem to have a more open attitude about gay and lesbian issues.”