This week
Advocate.com is going to highlight our remaining People of
the Year, who range from activists to entertainers,
politicians to students. Today we take a look at
environmentalist Al Gore, political strategist Chad
Griffin, and slain student Lawrence King.
This week
Advocate.com is going to highlight our remaining People of
the Year, who range from activists to entertainers,
politicians to students. Today we take a look at
environmentalist Al Gore, political strategist Chad
Griffin, and slain student Lawrence King.
Not only did
former Vice President Al Gore make the case for gay marriage
for his cable channel Current, but he’s been a
staunch environmentalist way before it was hip.
For more than a
decade, Chad Griffin has used his political nature to
influence Hollywood, but this past year, he used his clout
in an attempt to give Proposition 8 a run for its
money.
Most of the world
only knew of 15-year-old Lawrence King after his murder
in February, but his legacy lives on as another face in a
movement to stop violence and start tolerance in
schools.
Al Gore
Of all the
political surprises in 2008, perhaps none was sweeter than
Al Gore’s January announcement -- in a
Current.com video -- that he supports marriage
equality. In the casual one-minute clip, part of the
site’s "Make Your Point" series, the former
vice-president, sitting in what appears to be a
classroom, said that "gay men and women ought to have
the same rights as heterosexual men and women -- to make
contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join
together in marriage.” He added that he didn't
understand why same-sex marriage "is considered by
some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage,"
asking, "Shouldn't we be promoting…faithfulness
and loyalty to one’s partner?"
At the time,
Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were slugging it out
in South Carolina (the video went live just days before the
state’s primary) and Democrats were focused on
what was fast becoming an epic showdown. Meanwhile,
Gore’s remarks, while certainly welcome, seemed
positively out of left field—not least because,
unburdened by electoral concerns, he spoke freely on a
subject most politicians get tongue-tied talking
around.
Follow us on Twitter. 
Follow us on Facebook.
Page 1 of 3