Film director Roland Emmerich offers up to $250,000 towards US equal marriage efforts
Independence Day director Roland Emmerich has offered substantial financial support towards equal marriage efforts in the US, and will match donations by the public.
Roland Emmerich said he would match donations of up to $250,000 (£164,000) made before midnight on Tuesday, to the Human Rights Campaign.
The HRC helped towards efforts in the court case challenging California’s Proposition 8, now defunct, which banned equal marriage in the state.
“HRC won’t stop until discrimination against LGBT Americans is eliminated,” Emmerich told The Hollywood Reporter.
“With last week’s Supreme Court rulings, they proved it can be done, but we still have a long way to go in establishing equal rights for everyone. I support them every step of the way.”
Chad Griffin, the president of the HRC, said the rulings “have brought us two enormous steps closer toward unfastening the stranglehold that discrimination has on our nation’s laws … And as we jump from this history-making moment to a new chapter in the fight for full equality, I’m thrilled to announce a new matching gift challenge.”
He said the campaign was not only going to focus on so-called blue, Democratic states, and that it would also set its sights on Republican controlled states.
He said that he plans to visit Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, and Arkansas to meet with local groups, legislators and community members.
“With all of the media attention on our historic wins at the Supreme Court, we can’t afford to lose sight of the new reality: There are two tiers of equality in this country, where some LGBT Americans have protections and access to equal rights and others simply do not,” he said.
“Our streets will never be completely safe for a gay couple as long as most states bar them from something as basic as marriage,” Griffin said. “Our schools will never be completely safe for a transgender student until our laws protect their unimpeachable right to live and work without fear of being evicted or fired.”
