Friday Morning Man: Dustin Lance Black!

Dustin Lance Black, LGBT activist and Oscar winning screenwriter, is featured in OUT Magazine’s Third Annual Most Eligible Bachelors issue.

You look at the photos of him and you think, ‘Wow! What a great looking guy!’

But obviously there’s so much more.

With Oscar weekend upon us, it’s worth mentioning that it has been four years since Lance won the Academy Award for the screenplay he wrote for Milk.

His speech that night was one I will never forget during which he said: ‘… If Harvey [Milk] had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he’d want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, by the government or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally, across this great nation of ours.”

Since that night, Lance has continued to achieve so much as a filmmaker as he wrote the screenplay for the Clint Eastwood-directed J. Edgar and wrote and directed Virginia.

But most significantly, he has used his creative gifts to help advance the fight for LGBT equality. He wrote the play 8 using transcripts from the trial challenging California’s Proposition 8 – a case that will be heard before the US Supreme Court soon.

He’s become a big celebrity in the past four years with speeches, parades and visits to The White House. But he’s done things for all the right reasons, put in the work and the energy to make things happen and I’m so glad he’s out there on the front lines on our side.

Related posts: *** Dustin Lance Black Gives Greg In Hollywood nice shout-out in Oscar interview room

*** Dustin Lance Black at Lifeworks event: “It took a turn of luck to discover I had something I could look up to, and a turn of luck to save my life’