Comedian Wanda Sykes, who currently appears in the sitcom “The New Adventures of the Old Christine,” has admitted that she is gay in response to California’s Proposition 8 being passed. If you don’t know, Proposition 8 amended the California state constitution to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying. There has been a ruckus both for and against about same-sex marriage in California, which had been issuing marriage licenses to gays before Proposition 8 was passed. Two of the more famous homosexual marriages to take place in California this year were those of Ellen DeGeneres and her partner Portia de Rossi and Star Trek star George Takei and his partner Brad Altman. Because they were married before Proposition 8 was passed, their marriages are still recognized as legal.
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Sykes made her announcement at a gay rights rally at the Las Vegas GLBT Community Center, Nevada on Saturday. She told the crowd “You know, I don’t really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn’t feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life. Everybody that knows me personally they know I’m gay. But that’s the way people should be able to live their lives.”
However, Sykes said that the passage of Proposition 8 made her feel as if she were being “personally attacked.” She told the crowd of about 1,000 that she was proud to be a woman, proud to be black, and proud to be gay. She also informed the crowd that she and her wife were married in California on October 25th.
Sykes, who was married to David Hall for seven years before the two divorced in 1998, has been outspoken about gay rights in the past and has even referred to her “wife” in her stand-up shows. But, she has always declined to speak about her sexual orientation in interviews until now. She says that those who were supportive of Proposition 8 have now “pissed off the wrong group of people” and she thinks gay marriage will eventually be legal all over the country.