Sex and the City 2 star and gay marriage advocate Cynthia Nixon insists anti-gay rhetoric “sets people up as targets.”

Nixon made her comments on HLN's The Joy Behar Show.

“I feel that people like Carl Paladino and all of the ads that have been launched to fight against legalizing same-sex marriage in different [states] … You know people hear that. And when you send a message that there are two different categories of people and one is fully vested with legal rights and the other is not quite human … It sets those people up as a target. And that's why we see the bullying,” Nixon said, referring to the recent rash of gay teens bullied to death. (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)

Nixon, who is openly lesbian, has also campaigned in favor of the legalization of gay marriage in the Empire State, where she would like to marry her partner, education activist Christine Marinoni. Earlier in the month, Nixon disagreed with NOM President Brian Brown's assertion that marriage equality redefines marriage, saying, “When women got the vote, they didn't redefine voting.”