Peter Hedges Quotes

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said - and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded - 'It's like hair color. It's nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It's not a subject.' This was a very healthy attitude.

They might have a long way to go before truly accepting gay people into their lives, but they have accepted the show into their living rooms each and every week.

I think the moral majority and religious right have been shrinking and having not quite as loud a voice in America, and all of a sudden people are coming to their own realizations going, 'Joe down the street is gay and he's a great guy.'

I find it very interesting these days that films are bringing in so many people of different ethnicities, and I'm proud to be a part of that cultural shift.

Gay marriage won't be more of an issue 25 years from now than interracial marriage is today.

The bravery of Stanley Kramer's 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' amounted to two Hollywood legends - Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy - telling the world that a black son-in-law is something they can live with, and so should you, especially if he looks like Sidney Poitier and has degrees.

Now is not the time for us to shy away from challenging ourselves to make substantive change for the better. We have the opportunity to raise the bar in the faith-based world by forging a culture in which inclusivity, diversity, and equality are paramount.

The growing diversity of family life comes with new possibilities as well as new challenges.

I think the more open-minded people we have - like casting directors and producers - the better things are going to be.

I'm amazed when I hear my daughters with their friends. They'll just talk openly about, 'Yeah, he used to be a girl and now he's a boy.' It gives me a lot of hope... It's so matters of fact. It's like they're saying blue and yellow make green. I love that.

Legally we have integration, social acceptance and diversity... but that doesn't mean... everybody is down with it.

We, as a society, need to be open-minded.

We have a non-traditional family, and if it makes people uncomfortable, it's a shame that they are not more open.

I think millennials are the most woke generation because they understand that differences are just in the fabric of who we are.

What I want to see is more mixed casts. We need it. People need to be brave - in the real world, everyone and anyone is around. So if people get to see themselves on the stage, they'll want to come.

Mainstream American society finds it easiest to be tolerant when the outsider chooses to minimize the differences that separate him from the majority. The country club opens its doors to Jews. The university welcomes African-Americans. Heterosexuals extend the privilege of marriage to the gay community.

The beauty of the Democratic Party is in the mix.

Be yourself. And if you're not accepted by your family, there will be people who will accept you.

That was very difficult for me on 'American Idol' to feel like I had to be a certain way. It wasn't that the producers were saying that you shouldn't be gay or whatever, but there was this unspoken energy around saying you have to appeal to Middle America, and Middle America at that point was not ready for all that.

I really respond to diversity, a broader landscape, with actors of different ages and races and backgrounds.

When I first started talking about gay marriage, most people in the gay community looked at me as if I was insane or possibly a fascist reactionary.

It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change!

In Europe, the big word is tolerance. You tolerate everything.

I most certainly am not harboring any sort of negative feeling toward the gay community. I don't have an opinion on people with different religious, sexual or political preferences. I'm one of the most liberal artists that I think you will ever meet, and I pride myself on that.

Tolerance is forced on people in London.