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A look back at the late, great Elizabeth Taylor’s powerful speech for equality at 2000 GLAAD Awards

It’s been more than three years since Elizabeth Taylor left us.

The great movie star turned passionate AIDS activist would no doubt be deeply satisfied with the progress being made on the gay marriage front.

Back in 2000, she spoke of gays deserving the right to get married and have children while accepting the GLAAD Vanguard Award.

“I did not become an activist to win awards,” she said in her speech 14 years ago. “I became an activist to try to protect people. I could not sit silently by just doing nothing. I started my activism in the 80s when a new disease emerged that was quickly and inexplicably killing people.”

“Worse than the virus there was the terrible discrimination and prejudice left in its wake. Suddenly gay people stopped being human beings and started becoming the enemy. I knew that somebody had to do something.”

“All my life I’ve spent a lot of time with gay men – Montgomery Clift, Jimmy Dean, Rock Hudson,” she added. “I never thought about 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.”

FILE UNDER: GLAAD

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One Remark

  1. July 31st, 2014 at 9:26 am
    K. Martinez says:

    It’s hard to believe it’s been over three years since her passing. No other actor or actress impacted me the way Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman had. I was truly sad when we lost them both.

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