The interview with him on Frontiers Online is excellent, but for those who don't want to read the whole thing, here are the last two paragraphs. They struck me as in need of repeating wherever, whenever possible.
There definitely is a huge degree of introspection that goes along with this character, Dysart, that you’re currently inhabiting. Has that influenced your life, or your decision to come out?
This is something that I’ve mused on for a long time. I’ve been thinking on sharing it with the media, but the media is an ungovernable creature. [But] it’s still a constraint in life, [and] you want to act on those constraints, like the marriage bill [AB 849]. Arnold Schwarzenegger is like some of those duplicitous Southern politicians who would say one thing and yet maintain segregation in the South. And that’s what he’s doing here. He’s a dangerous politician, in the same way that Strom Thurmond or other politicians who say one thing in order to try to curry a broad base of support, and then when push comes to shove, they act in a segregationist way. You know, that’s what Arnold Schwarzenegger is. When he first was mouthing the words he was mouthing I thought, “Hmmm, alright, let’s see.” And then this bill was passed, which was landmark, and it hung on him. And he failed utterly. When you see things like that, you say, “I can play a part in trying to change some of those constraints that we have to struggle with.” We talk about diversity, ethnic diversity, but there’s another kind of diversity [sexual orientation] that we haven’t really come to grips with as a society. And the segregationist mentality is so strong, but it’s as destructive as racial segregation was in the South, or incarceration on the basis of looking like the enemy, as in the case of Japanese-Americans during the second World War—you know, it’s that same mentality, and in order to be vocal on those issues, I think I need to address those issues as who I am.
I was in the march from the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center the day after Arnold vetoed the bill. We stopped Hollywood Boulevard. It was quite a thing to feel, walking down the middle of the street.
You’re much too young to have been in the civil-rights movement. I marched back then—I was in a civil-rights musical, Fly Blackbird, and we met Martin Luther King. What a profoundly, both uplifting and empowering thing that was. He shook my hand! [With] certain people, you feel a charge through their hand. It was a fantastic experience. It was a big rally at the Sports Arena. And you know, the gay-marriage movement has to get that kind of numbers. I mean, today, this week—who would have thought—Time magazine’s cover story is on gay teens. And the commentary is that it’s a whole different mentality with the young generation. I do think society will eventually change. I mean, it’s changed incredibly from the time I was a teenager to today, both in terms of Asian-Americans in the theater and television and films, but also for gays and our self-image, and the ability to move in our society. We still have the archreactionary conservatives. It’s that mentality, the Bible-thumpers, “We have the whole truth, and by gum we’re going to impose it on everybody.” It’s that same mentality that had segregation in the south: Blacks and whites can never mix. And the segregationists had the truth. The Bible-thumping religiosos are not the holders of the truth, and yet they are the ones who want to impose their truth—and I respect their truth, if they find it for their strength and their guidance through life—but for them to impose that on the rest of society, the rest of America, I think is just as corrupt as the segregationists trying to impose racial segregation in the South.
You go, George!
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devinam and I are going running at 2:00. You see my dilemma. The rain is supposed to ease up as the day goes on. We'll see...
