Most Americans are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I'm advocating a balanced budget. But along with that, look, there should be gay marriage equality. A woman should have the right to choose. Let's not build a fence across the border.

In articulating all my feelings about marriage equality, I almost don't know where to begin. And perhaps that's part of the problem. Why do we have to explain ourselves when it comes to issues of fairness and equality? Why is common sense not enough?

It's a facet of the gay rights movement that people don't think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn't until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana's 'head and master rule,' that the husband was head and master of the house.

Gorsuch showed his true colors to the LGBTQ community when, in one of his first dissenting opinions on the high court, he advocated limiting the reach of the landmark 2015 marriage equality ruling by denying certain parenting rights to same-sex couples.

Abolition didn't just happen - people made it happen. Women's suffrage didn't just happen - people made it happen. Civil Rights legislation didn't just happen - people made it happen. And marriage equality didn't just happen, either - people made it happen.

After lengthy consideration, my views have evolved sufficiently to support marriage equality legislation. This position doesn't require any religious denomination to alter any of its tenets; it simply forbids government from discrimination regarding who can marry whom.

Evan Wolfson is a dear friend of mine. Almost more than any other, Evan is responsible for bringing the issue of marriage equality to the forefront of our struggle for civil rights. He is a courageous pioneer who has been relentless in this battle for marriage equality.

The reality is that Hillary Clinton has been a steadfast supporter of LGBT equality. She has evolved on the issue of LGBT equality, and I think we are a better movement when we give people space to grow and learn. We can't reduce it to a single issue like marriage equality.

Well, my personal mission statement is that we want marriage equality in all 50 states. We want it not to be a state-by-state issue. We don't want it to be something the majority is voting on. I don't think the civil rights of any minority should be in the hands of any majority.

I think it really changes things when you're able to get married. I mean, the Marriage Equality Act was super important. I think you cannot believe it happened as fast as it did. For a lot of gay people, it's very surprising. You thought that this is going to be a struggle forever.

We have a problem with dealing with race in our country. We have a problem with dealing with marriage equality and equality in general. These are complex, divisive issues in our society, and I think that the only way we further this conversation is to take them down to a very human scale.

Montanans believe in the right to make a good life for their families. How they define a family should be their business and their business alone. I'm proud to support marriage equality because no one should be able to tell a Montanan or any American who they can love and who they can marry.

Doing difficult things like passing marriage equality, passing the Dream Act, doing common sense things that allow new American immigrants to fully participate, pay their taxes, play by the rules and take care of their families. That's the inclusive America that I believe all of us want to move to.

For some of my friends who raise personal objections to marriage equality, they still recognize the importance of being accepting. And many of them also recognize that regardless of what they choose to believe or practice at home or at their church, that doesn't give them the right to discriminate.

Well, my view before was a Western view, and I certainly understand marriage equality and civil rights, equal rights for all, but having visited developing nations and some of the poorest nations in the world, I realize how deep it goes and how much work really needs to be done to create equality for all.

Marriage equality is a hustler's feeding frenzy of gold-diggers. I campaigned for marriage equality in Maryland because I believe we should have the right to it, but I personally don't want to get married. I don't want to imitate the traditions of heterosexual people. I hate weddings: they make me uneasy.

Many queer and trans people live - and lived - in our prison and jails, in our homeless shelters, in run-down houses and apartment buildings, and on the corners of every major city. Marriage equality doesn't help them; and the potential loss of momentum for trans/queer rights after this win could well hurt them.

From the new hate crimes law to the repeal of DOMA and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' to the emerging popular support for marriage equality, we are making progress at breakneck speed. As someone who has dedicated most of my career to civil rights law, I am deeply moved by this sea change and proud to have done my part.

It is each American's constitutional right to marry the person they love, no matter what state they inhabit. No state should decide who can marry and who cannot. Thanks to the tireless work of so many, someday soon this discrimination will end and every American will be able to enjoy their equal right to marriage.

Separate inherently is not equal. There's a reason why $45 million was spent against marriage equality. It's because people understand the word does have meaning. And equality comes when we accept the same notions and the same institutions for everyone, regardless of race and gender and regardless of sex orientation.

Marriage should not be a goal; it should be a choice. One choice available out of many recognized as valid by society. But it isn't. Not yet. Right now, as far as society is concerned, you are married or you are not yet married. And as that notion becomes further codified our freedom to make other choices steadily erodes.

Mr. Christ, I read you as an infinitely patient entity who, as they say, often works in mysterious ways, a rebel unafraid to take the tougher, less traveled paths. Seems to me you're playing the long game. Is that why more states are coming out in favor of marriage equality? Is that why the Affordable Care Act is now with us?

I think when you're talking about marriage equality and race, people very quickly start to get into their political corners: their ideology comes to the forefront, and they get into this platform argument that they're used to making, which really doesn't have anything to do with the day-to-day basics of what is being talked about.

As an actor, you just want to work, and then you just want to be on a show or have a job that you love, and you hope that job will last - those things have happened. To have that platform to then talk about something that is very personal to me like marriage equality, it feels like a gift. I try and really respect that voice and not abuse it.

I pledge as Taoiseach to use my office, for as long as I hold it, to advance the cause of LGBT rights, to press for marriage equality across Ireland, to speak up for LGBT rights around the world where they are under attack, and to push for the implementation of the sexual health strategy here at home at a time when it is more important than ever.

A middle ground might be to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution. [Legalizing "same-sex marriage"] is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture.

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