Posted on 08/27/2006 6:04:33 AM PDT by Aussie Dasher
ACTOR Lily Tomlin has criticised the United States and Australian governments over their opposition to same-sex marriage, saying everyone should have the right to wed.
The openly-gay Hollywood veteran, 66, has been with her female partner, Jane Wagner, a writer and producer, for 35 years.
While she and Wagner have no plans to marry, Tomlin feels all people should have the choice.
US President George W Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard have both spoken out against same-sex marriage, and the Federal Government recently quashed ACT legislation allowing homosexuals to create civil unions.
"I am happy for anybody who wants to get married and I think they should have every right to," Tomlin said today. "It is an aggressively negative rejection," she said of the governments' responses to the issue.
"You have had an amendment here against same sex marriage. We have, too, in many of the states (in the United States) and I expect it will get more."
Tomlin, most recently known for her role as Deborah Fiderer in the Emmy-award winning political drama The West Wing, suggests the gay community could even create an alternative arrangement to marriage.
"It would be a profound thing if it was done (same-sex marriage was legislated for) because, basically, in the eyes of most people, it is a religious fundamental issue," she said.
"I am not a religious person and to me it is a kind of imitation of straight society.
"If anything, we could be more forward thinking and we could maybe create something different."
Tomlin, originally from Detroit, has been acting since the early 1960s when she scored a spot on Laugh In with her character Ernestine the telephone operator.
She's been nominated for an Academy Award, won a number of Emmys and Tonys and been in countless films, including Nashville, Nine to Five and Big Business.
Tomlin is in Australia for her first comedy tour but will perform only two shows Sydney's State Theatre on August 30 and the Melbourne Arts Centre on September 2.
what a waste of talent.
A gay man has the same exact right to marriage that I do. All he needs is a willing woman. ;)
Lily's "wife".
Who gives one-Ringy-Dingy?
My goodness. It looks like it just came in from 20 degree below weather on the China-North Korean border as a militia guardsperson! :-)
Yes, yes it is.
Lily, your problem isn't with the President, it's with people like me, who won't stand for "gay marriage" or any other legal endorsement of "gayness" in our land. Think "separation of sex and state."
Never did care for her pinch-mouthed portrayals of spinster-like, closeted nymphos.
Excuse me Ernestine, they already have that right.
That's deliciously in their face and ***HILLARIOUS***!
Oh, great! There's another classic TV show and actress I'll never be able to look at the same way again. :-(
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the Federal Government recently quashed ACT legislation allowing homosexuals to create civil unions.
Well....duh!
Civil law is based on common law, which gets its precepts from natural, or Biblical law.
You can't be married 'in the eyes of God' if you're gay.
It's like asking God to approve of something He's already designated a 'sin'.
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Despite it's prohibition of an 'establishment of religion', the Constitution is a common law contract. Though the feds will probably never acknowledge it, it doesn't keep it from being a fact.
I didn't even know she was gay til I read this article.
LOL! Clever. :o)
Not "actor" SHE is an actrESS.
Her performances are on the dead list.
counterfit marriage is the whole point of "civil unions", the left wants to literally outlaw ALL marriage and substitute that which is "granted to citizens from the government".
This means child raising, number of members, REPRODUCTION would all be government controlled issues.
ACTOR?
She's an ACTRESS.
Got a lot of gender confussion.
Sorry Lily... You don't get to redefine the language.
...and that's the truth! PPPTTPPPTTPPPTTPPPTTPPPTTPPPPTTT!!!
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