GAY RIGHTS: CRUSADERS

GAY RIGHTS: CRUSADERS Related Information:

Betty Degeneres

Although she is a heterosexual individual, Betty Degeneres has become a familiar face as champion for gay and lesbian causes. She was born in 1930 and is the mother of both a son and a daughter. Degeneres holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in speech pathology.

Betty’s daughter Ellen openly admitted to her mother that she was a lesbian in the 1970s. Ellen gained nationwide attention in 1993 when she was asked to star in her own sitcom called Ellen. In 1997, Ellen became more than just a popular TV show. It was the first show in television history to announce that both the leading actor and her character were gay.

Betty discovered that the public’s support for Ellen was overwhelmingly positive after admitting that she was gay. As a result, she decided to take an active and outspoken role in the gay community. Since 1998, she has been the Human Right’s Campaign’s (HRC) National Coming Out spokesperson. The campaign encourages gays and lesbians to be more upfront and honest about their sexuality and lifestyle. This marks the first time a heterosexual person has headed the campaign.

Degeneres has given speeches throughout the United States discussing support for gay rights, promoting honesty about being gay, and encouraging compassion for those with alternative lifestyles. She has dubbed herself a “late-blooming activist” because she did not get involved in the movement until later in her life.

In addition to her role in gay and lesbian activism, Betty is also a published author. She has written two books entitled Love, Ellen: A Mother/DaughterJourney and Just a Mom. Betty writes “Ask Betty,” a column on issues of gay acceptance, for PlanetOut.

Sir Ian McKellan

Born May 25, 1939, Ian McKellan grew up in northern England and was interested in the theater from an early age. His parents encouraged his fascination with the arts and young Ian grew up listening to the classical music that his father played on the piano.

He acted in plays and productions throughout his school years and attended summer camps that further cultivated his love for theater. After graduating from college, McKellan decided to become an actor. His first major role was as King Edward II in the Prospect Theater Company’s touring production of Edward II.

Once McKellan had left home, he lived an openly gay lifestyle but kept his sexuality hidden from his family. McKellan publicly acknowledged that he was gay on a BBC radio broadcast in 1988 while discussing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s legislation that proposed homosexuality to be a crime. With that acknowledgement, he quickly became an activist for gay and lesbian rights.

Roles in such films as And the Band Played On, Rasputin, Gods and Monsters, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy have won McKellan numerous awards as well as accolades, but acting in the theater probably is closest to his heart. In 1994, he started performing A Knight Out, his autobiographical one-man play about growing up, being gay, and all of his experiences in between.

In 1990, Queen Elizabeth knighted McKellan for his support and dedication to the arts. He is one of only a few openly gay knights.

Ian is a co-founder of Stonewall, a high-profile gay rights group in the U.K.

Melissa Etheridge

Best known for being a rock musician, Melissa Etheridge has many other titles to her name: spouse, mother, activist, and fighter. This powerful woman was born on May 29, 1961 in Leavenworth, Kansas. She was writing songs by age 10 and played with local bands throughout her teenaged years. Finally, realizing that her rock star dreams needed to be pursued in a land far from Kansas, Etheridge left home and headed for Los Angeles.

While playing in local clubs and bars in and around L.A., Etheridge had a chance meeting with the founder of Island Records. He liked her music and signed her to his label on the spot. Her first album, Melissa Etheridge, debuted in 1988. It was followed up by two more albums: Brave and Crazy and Never Enough. While these albums gave Etheridge the airplay she needed along with a Grammy award, it was 1993’s Yes I Am that allowed her to truly explode into the world of rock and roll music and become a household name. Among her hits were “Come to My Window” and “I’m the Only One.”

Etheridge was quite active in Bill Clinton’s campaign for the presidency and during his inauguration in 1993, she publicly acknowledged that she was a lesbian. She had a long-term relationship with actress Julie Cypher and the couple had two children fathered by David Crosby. The couple later split and in 2003, Etheridge married Tammy Lynn Michaels.

Along with her music career, Etheridge lends her name to many gay rights causes and was quite outspoken after the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay man, in Wyoming.

In 2004, Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer. After undergoing surgery, she is expected to recover fully.

Chastity Bono

Chastity Bono will always be remembered as the adorable blonde offspring on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, but the daughter of Sonny and Cher prefers a different persona these days: gay rights activist.

Bono was born in 1969. She attended New York University but was bitten with the music bug. She left school to pursue dreams of stardom. Her band Ceremony had one album in 1993 called Hang Out Your Poetry.

She always suspected that there was something different about her, and after viewing the film Personal Best at age 13, Bono realized there was a word to describe what she had been suspected about herself all along: lesbianism. She publicly admitted that she was a lesbian in 1995, and her story was published in The Advocate, a magazine that she wrote for. Bono later worked with Ellen Degeneres as a consultant to the Ellen TV show. Bono’s work was an asset to the eventual revelation on the show that Degeneres and her character were lesbians.

Working with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Bono hoped to better educate the public on gay issues while preventing discrimination in the media. She also is an advocate for the Human Rights Campaign, a group that supports equal rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons.

In 2002, Bono’s book Family Outing was published. The book is a collection of stories from gay and lesbian people discussing acknowledgement of their sexuality. The purpose of the book is to encourage people to come out of the closet while offering advice and understanding to the heterosexual community. Bono’s second book, The End of Innocence: A Memoir, was published in 2003.

Rosie O’Donnell

Rosie O’Donnell has kept herself quite busy as she moves from stand up comedian to talk show host to movie star. But her entertaining career and well-known reputation have enabled her to be one of the most outspoken individuals in the gay and lesbian community.

O’Donnell grew up on Long Island and started her career as a stand-up comic. She had a small part on the sitcom Gimme a Break and hosted VH1’s Stand UpSpotlight. She later appeared in such films as A League of Their Own and Another Stakeout. From 1996 through 2002, O’Donnell hosted her own TV talk show, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and used her influence to help promote various charities.

In 2002, O’Donnell openly admitted that she was a lesbian amid rumors that had been swarming for years about her sexuality. O’Donnell has portrayed lesbian roles in films, but she chose to disclose her lesbianism because she felt that the subject needed a familiar face to define it. In addition, she felt angry that many states in the U.S. refused to allow gay parents to adopt children. As a gay parent who has adopted children herself, O’Donnell felt the need to educate the public on this issue. She has also spoken out against President Bush and his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which strictly defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

In February 2004, O’Donnell and her partner Kelli Carpenter were married in San Francisco after the city began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.