George Takei comments from an interview in Variety published today:
As a child I was incarcerated for being Japanese American. It was one of the most egregious violations of civil liberties in history, but American citizens during World War II got swept up in this anti-Japanese hysteria.Later as a teenager, I’d read about our democracy and I couldn’t relate to it because I remembered my childhood imprisonment. I had to have my mind changed about American democracy by my father. He said that our democracy is only as great as its people can be, but it’s also as fallible as its people. He described it as a work in progress.
Also, from the obituary in the NYT for Patrick Macnee who died yesterday: Mr. Macnee’s father, Daniel, known as Shrimp, was a horse trainer, and he claimed that his mother, the former Dorothea Hastings, was a direct descendant of Robin Hood. After Dorothea divorced Mr. Macnee’s father for another woman, Patrick moved in with the two women. “Uncle Evelyn,” as Macnee referred to his mother’s lover in his memoir, “Blind in One Ear,” helped pay for his schooling. It is my hope that the legalization in the US of a traditional expression of love that is irrespective of assigned sex or chosen gender will be accepted as part of the work in progress, even by those whose livelihoods and self worth is dependent on the existence of bigotry.I also hope that this ruling will help children who are in a home where the parents do not have full rights to help them, or are in need of new parents who will have the freedom to help and love them unconditionally, are going to be more likely to experience the best life possible. To quote Fred Small, love is love, and a child knows when it's there.