WATCH: Greg Berlanti gave an amazing speech while accepting the Governors Award at the Emmy Awards

This was easily my favorite speech of the night. Thank God for Greg Berlanti, thank God he got this award at this time and said meaningful things from his heart.

Some excerpts:

“There wasn’t a lot of gay characters on television back then, and I was a closeted gay kid, and it’s hard to describe how lonely that was at the time,” Berlanti said.. “There was no Internet to connect with other queer kids, no LGBTQ+ advocacy groups in schools. Back then, the only way to tell if another kid might be gay was if he also watched Dynasty, Dallas and could name all four of the Golden Girls.”

Berlanti then recalled the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s that, along with fear, brought the first images of openly gay men on television that he saw “holding hands with other men, marching and fighting for their lives.”

“They gave me hope that I might one day have their courage to come out and share my truth with the world,” Berlanti said.

He also thanked “my soulmate, my husband, Robbie Rogers,” who executive produces the Emmy-nominated Fellow Travelers.

“When I think about it, to have traveled that distance from that scared kid years ago to this stage with my husband in the audience and our two beautiful children, Caleb and Mia, watching at home, when I think about how much the world had to change to make the life I’m living now possible, even in hindsight, it’s unimaginable to me.”

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