When the California Supreme Court ruled yesterday in favor of same-sex marriage, Ellen DeGeneres was the first celebrity to announce that she intended to take advantage of the court’s decision.
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DeGeneres said she and her longtime girlfriend Portia de Rossi would marry at Thursday’s taping of her talk show, which will air today.
An emotional DeGeneres joked, “I’ll tell you who the lucky guy is soon,” after cameras panned to de Rossi, who applauded in the studio audience.
DeGeneres has been pioneer for gays in the public eye. She made headlines in 1997 when, on her sitcom, Ellen, her character came out as a lesbian. DeGeneres came out personally, in an interview with Time magazine, the same year.
She is one of many celebrities who spoke to The Advocate about the new ruling.
“I can’t wait to get married,” she told the magazine. “We all deserve the same rights, and I believe that someday we’ll look back on this and not allowing gays to marry will seem as absurd as not allowing women to vote. P.S. I’m registered at Crate & Barrel.”
Other high-profile people who have added to the commentary on the new ruling are: Marc Jacobs (”Who to love and how to love should be up to the individual or the couple. Enough said!”), Melissa Ethridge (”I feel they have made an honest woman of me”) and T.R. Knight (”Our ‘certain inalienable rights’ are protected today. It makes me proud to live in a country that works to correct its sins”).