Actor-director Rob Reiner has suggested
America is ready for gay marriage.
The 64-year-old Reiner is a board
member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group
formed specifically to challenge the constitutionality of Proposition
8, California's 2008 voter-approved gay marriage ban.
AFER's legal challenge resulted in a
federal judge declaring Proposition 8 unconstitutional last year.
(The ruling has been appealed.)
On Monday, 8, the Dustin Lance
Black (Milk) play based on the 13-day trial, had its
star-studded Broadway premiere.
During an appearance on MSNBC's Morning
Joe, Reiner talked about the play's premiere, his group's legal
challenge and Proposition 8.
Reiner suggested marriage equality was
on the brink of acceptance.
“The country right now is virtually
split 50/50. I think the latest polls show that gay marriage is over
the 50 percent mark. We're just barely over 50 percent,” Reiner
said. “And it's interesting because people would say, 'Well why
bring a federal court case at this point?' Well, when Loving v.
Virginia, which is back in 1967, which said that blacks and
whites could not get married, almost 70 percent of the country was
against the idea of interracial marriage. So, we're much further
along in terms of the public accepting the idea of gay marriage than
they were at the time accepting interracial marriage.” (The video
is embedded in the right panel of this page.)