Looking back at his life since coming
out gay in 2005, actor George Takei has called the changes “surreal.”
The 77-year-old Takei, who is best
known for his role as Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek, has said he
was prompted to come out by
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's veto of a gay marriage
bill. Three years later, he married Brad Altman in California.
Speaking
to Edge
on the Net, Takei called
being out a “dramatic, amazing, almost surreal experience.”
“The
State Department sent me on a two-week speaking tour through South
Korea and Japan, and I ended up being honored at a reception hosted
by the American ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy,” Takei said.
“At that reception, one of the guests was the First Lady of Japan,
the wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Mrs. Akie Abe. She told me
that she had ridden on a float in Tokyo's Rainbow Pride just the week
before. Can you believe that someone like the First Lady of Japan
rode in the Pride Parade?”
“And
then go back to 2005, when both houses of the California Legislature
passed a landmark marriage equality bill. Massachusetts had marriage
equality at that time, but it came through the courts … so for the
first time, the legislature had legalized marriage equality, and the
bill went to the desk of the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he
vetoed it. When the press interviewed him, he kept saying in this
robotic tone, 'I have no problem with marriage equality, but I vetoed
it.' And later on we learn that, at that time, he was carrying on
with his housekeeper under his wife Maria Shriver's nose!”
“To
think, from that time to now, when I'm meeting the First Lady of
Japan and I'm being honored at a reception by Caroline Kennedy, it's
just surreal to see how much in my life has changed in just nine
short years.”
(Related:
George
Takei documentary To
Be Takei premieres Thursday.)