This article is about George Clooney and a little about Brad Pitt and a LOT about Proposition 8. I hope you are still reading.
George Clooney’s new interview with The Advocate was released yesterday. I love every word. I love him when he’s saying these words. This is the George Clooney I wish he could be, like, all the time. Not the one who feels he always has to have a lower fame level escort during award season, not the one compelled to bend over for the MiniVan Majority, not the one who can’t just take his parents to the Oscars and win as a single man without a girlfriend.
Be this guy!
Show me the guy who speaks so passionately about marriage equality, about Darfur, about Syria. Because this guy is a winner. This guy is the one I want to vote for.
I strongly encourage you to click here to read Clooney’s full interview with The Advocate. There’s a great answer here about a great role vs a great film (which, if we want to move temporarily over to a different tangent, is what is plaguing actresses in Hollywood these days - there are few strong parts, and the parts that are strong belong in weak vehicles. Why is this?) and about when and if he’ll soon play a gay character. Obviously what people are most fixated on is his response to that ongoing question about whether or not he’s gay himself.
The gay rumor has followed you for years.
I think it’s funny, but the last thing you’ll ever see me do is jump up and down, saying, “These are lies!” That would be unfair and unkind to my good friends in the gay community. I’m not going to let anyone make it seem like being gay is a bad thing. My private life is private, and I’m very happy in it. Who does it hurt if someone thinks I’m gay? I’ll be long dead and there will still be people who say I was gay. I don’t give a sh-t.
Here’s what I consider to be the best part of the article:
When did you decide to get involved in the fight for marriage equality?
It’s always been this albatross that stood out to me as the final leg of the civil rights movement. It really came to a head during the 2004 elections, when it was used as a wedge issue, and it was a very effective tool to keep the Republicans in office and to avoid talking about other issues. Well before Prop. 8, I’ve made the point that every time we’ve stood against equality, we’ve been on the wrong side of history. It’s the same kind of argument they made when they didn’t want blacks to serve in the military, or when they didn’t want blacks to marry whites. One day the marriage equality fight will look as archaic as George Wallace standing on the University of Alabama steps keeping James Hood from attending college because he was black. People will be embarrassed to have been on the wrong side. So it’s encouraging to know that this too will seem like such a silly argument to our next generation. There are even a lot of young conservatives today for whom marriage equality isn’t an issue. It always takes government an extra generation to catch up to the people.
When the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to restrict marriage based on race in 1967 (Loving v Virginia), two thirds of the population at the time were against interracial marriage. In that sense, then, government was ahead of the people. But right now, a majority support marriage equality (source) and 70% of those under 40, in other words, our future leaders, believe it to be a basic human right. In this case then, the government needs to catch up to the people.
Can you believe it used to be AGAINST the law for people of different races to fall in love and get married? As George Clooney posits, one day we’ll feel the same way about marriage equality.
This coming Saturday March 3, George Clooney and several high profile celebrities will perform a reading of the play “8”, written by Dustin Lance Black, about the fight to defeat Proposition 8. George will be David Boies alongside Martin Sheen as Ted Olson. Boies and Olson are considered the two brightest legal minds in America and, prior to Prop 8, though friends, they were frequent adversaries in court - see Bush v Gore.
For a long time Boies and Olson had been looking for an opportunity to work together. If we are labeling people, Boies is considered to be liberal and Olson conservative. But on Prop 8, on legal and moral grounds, Boies and Olson stood together. And brought that motherf-cker down.
It’s a great idea for a movie, non?
David Boies recently appeared on Charlie Rose. If you have time at lunch today - just 16 minutes - I highly recommend watching. Click here. He’s brilliant. And while Boies doesn’t resemble Clooney physically, he's so smart you’ll find yourself attracted to him immediately. George is playing that guy.
Brad Pitt, it was just announced today, will be reading Judge Vaughn Walker, who declared Prop 8 unconstitutional.
8 the play will be livestreamed on YouTube on Saturday March 3.
