ELIZABETH 3

"I started my activism in the eighties when a new disease emerged that was quickly and inexplicably killing people. Worse than the virus there was the terrible discrimination and prejudice it left in its wake. Suddenly it made gay people stop being human beings and start becoming the enemy. I knew somebody had to do something. For God's sake, our president didn't even utter the word for years into the epidemic. So I got involved.
All of my life I've spent a lot of time with gay men -- Montgomery Clift, Jimmy Dean, Rock Hudson -- who are my colleagues, coworkers, confidantes, my closest friends, but I never thought of who they slept with! They were just the people I loved. I could never understand why they couldn't be afforded the same rights and protections as all of the rest of us. There is no gay agenda, it's a human agenda.
All of us should be treated the same. Why shouldn't gay people be allowed to marry? Those against gay marriages say marriage should only be between a man and a woman.
God, I, of all people know that [the remainder of the sentence was inaudible due to an audience outburst]. I feel that any home where there is love constitutes a family and all families should have the same legal rights, including the right to marry and have or adopt children!
Why shouldn't gay people be able to live as open and freely as everybody else? What it comes down to, ultimately, is love. How can anything bad come out of love? The bad stuff comes out of mistrust, misunderstanding and, God knows, from hate and from ignorance. Thank God GLAAD works to fight this.
During my life I've seen many things, good and bad, but the bad things never came out of loving acts, loving gestures or loving relationships. That's why I'm here tonight -- to celebrate you and your families. And to tell you to hang in there and to say, once and for all of us, long live love."

Elizabeth Teylor's acceptance speech in GLAAD's Vanguard Award for promoting gay equality (2000).

AP, 1/8/1985