The latest high-profile Hollywood
donation supporting gay marriage in California comes from director
Steven Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, who donated
$100,000, reports Variety.
The couple donated the money to the
Equality for All/No on 8 campaign, the main group working to defeat
Proposition 8.
Gay marriage is currently legal in
California after a May Supreme Court ruling reversed a 2000
voter-approved gay marriage ban. Since then thousands of gay and
lesbian couples have married.
Passage of Proposition 8 would
constitutionally forbid gay marriage in the State and invalidate the
thousands of gay marriages which have already taken place.
“By writing discrimination into our
state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of
each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual
orientation,” the couple said in a statement. “Such
discrimination has NO place in California's constitution, or any
other.”
The gift equals that of Hollywood actor
Brad Pitt, who announced he would donate $100,000 in support of gay
marriage to the No on 8 campaign last week.
Openly lesbian actress Cynthia Nixon
praised Pitt for his support of gay marriage. “I think the way
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie always give their money, and the things
they give it to, and the enormous amounts they give of it is just
incredibly commendable,” Nixon told the Online edition of People.
“I think they inspire other people to
give as well,” Nixon said before the Spielberg-Capshaw donation was
announced.