George Takei Quotes

Traditionally, marriage is one arena where states have all but plenary power; it took until 1967 for the Supreme Court to tell states they could not prohibit interracial marriage.

The Obama years will be remembered as a cultural - and legal - tipping point for equality for all people who do not identify as strictly heterosexual, arguably the civil rights movement of our times. The president signed the bill repealing 'don't ask, don't tell.' The Defense of Marriage Act was struck down by the Supreme Court.

I hope gay marriage will be legal in every state.

My dad is Chinese, and my mom is a white American, and they married only ten years after the United States Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal to ban mixed marriages. Imagine that. Marriages between people of different races - now common and accepted - were illegal in many states up until the late Sixties.

A Miami judge issued Florida's first gay marriage license yesterday, which makes it the 36th state to legally perform gay marriages. Of course, most Florida residents are too old to understand what that means. They'll say, 'Well, I think all marriages should be gay, and merry.'

After much deliberation, and after reviewing the legal, public policy and civil-rights questions presented, I support marriage equality for same-sex couples and believe that DOMA should be repealed.

Whatever the long-term legal prospects for same-sex marriage, President Obama's willingness to put the matter front and center in an election year can at least make him a candidate for inclusion in Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.

It's ludicrous that my friends in California aren't able to legally get married. It's a civil rights issue. In 20 years we're going to look back at tapes of these antigay people saying ridiculous things on the news and it's going to sound as antiquated as the newsreels of horrible racists from the '50s.

Obama's endorsement of gay marriage is hardly as consequential as Johnson's legislative success on civil rights.

I don't think it's a great leap to go from civil unions to gay marriage - I may be in the minority in believing that.

My parents had to go to Ohio to get married in 1965 because it was still illegal in Mississippi. My white father and black mother.

When I got married, my marriage was illegal in 17 states because my husband had a different skin color than I did. And we saw those laws go down one at a time.

The government shouldn't be involved in this because it's very simple. If you don't believe in same-sex marriage, then don't marry somebody of the same sex.

Sooner or later they are going to live in a New York City where gay marriage is not only legal, but it's common and they don't even notice.

People don't think about the fact that when Barack Obama's parents had him - it was illegal for them to be married in several states in this country. So if we start making it okay that certain people can marry and other people can't, it's a slippery slope of civil rights. Who knows who is going to be allowed to marry or not marry next.

I am proud to be the first Republican to support marriage equality; it is something I have had in my heart for a long time… Let’s open the floodgates and take this across America.

Just as states should not make laws based on race of who should be able to marry, they should not make laws based on sex about who can marry.

Gay Marriage is the Civil Rights Issue of our time.

I'm 58 years old. I got married for the first time - it's about time, right? Growing up as a gay woman, you just don't ever think about that, and then I thought, about 10 years ago, 'You know, I think within 10 years gay marriage will be legal.' And here we are, 10 years later, making it legal.

I believe all people, regardless of sexual orientation, should be guaranteed the full rights to the legal benefits and responsibilities of marriage under the Constitution.

Gay marriage acceptance is happening in the blink of an eye.

We would be more American on the day we permitted same-sex marriage than we were on the day before.

There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

I feel like in 10 or 15 years' time our children are going to look back and say, 'What? You were around when gay people weren't allowed to get married?'

If two people of the same sex fall in love and want to marry, why would our government stand in their way?