It's only fair that stable gay relationships of long standing should have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. I know the image of gay marriage is to some people horrific and ludicrous.
Ian MckellenRead
There is a fantasy as old as the modern gay rights movement that if all our skins turned lavender overnight, the majority, confounded by our numbers and our diversity, and recognising a few of our faces, would at once let go of prejudice forevermore.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the hope that visible diversity in the LGBTQ+ community could dissolve prejudice against it.
Ian McKellen's quote reflects a longing for a world where societal prejudices fade if people were to recognize the humanity and diversity within the LGBTQ+ community. It captures the fantasy that a sudden and visible change in appearance would lead others to accept and embrace differences, highlighting the absurdity of prejudice in the face of commonality.
In practice
During a pride event, speaking about the importance of visibility in the LGBTQ+ community.
It's only fair that stable gay relationships of long standing should have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. I know the image of gay marriage is to some people horrific and ludicrous.
On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.
I just followed my parents' example and advice on living, which was to leave the world a better place than you found it. They were professional do-gooders, ministers of the church, social workers, teachers, and missionaries, that sort of thing.
I don't make any distinction between a popular TV series or blockbuster film and doing Shakespeare. They're different, but as long as the material is good and the intention is honourable, it's all the same to me.
There are deaths in public places on the grounds that the victim is gay.
What's nice for me, having identified myself for years as being rather shy, is now, wherever I am, in public, there tends to be a friendly face who's pleased to see me, and I like that.
Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood, and you're the one I need
People don't contest that I'm British as a black man, but they do contest that I'm English. Too many people are going back to an ethnocentric idea of what being English means.
I fervently believe that people shouldn't stay in bad relationships just because of some artificial rom-com notion of true love being "forever." In fact, I think that the pressure of conforming to that framework ruins-literally RUINS-a lot of people's lives.
Invest in great relationships, they will pay a lifetime of dividends.
Few things in life are more embarrassing than the necessity of having to inform an old friend that you have just got engaged to his fiancee.
Because maybe, in a way, we didn't leave it behind nearly as much as we might once have thought. Because somewhere underneath, a part of us stayed like that: fearful of the world around us, and no matter how much we despised ourselves for it--unable quite to let each other go.
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