On May 17th, at a marriage equality rally organized by Broadway Impact, Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon announced before a raucous crowd in Manhattan that she and her girlfriend of 5 years were engaged to be married.

Known for visibly entrenching herself in the gay rights struggle in recent years, Nixon emphatically spoke for the need to legalize same-sex marriage in a speech that inspired ebullient applause from throngs of people gathered for blocks around. The transcript is given below.

"So, we're living in a pretty exciting time, huh?

20 years ago who could have possibly anticipated that 5 out of our 50 states would have legal, same-sex marriage. And I know that 20 years from now, schoolkids are going to be asking their teachers how and why same-sex marriage was ever illegal in America.

Change is coming and it's coming fast, but we have to do everything we can to open that door a little bit wider and escort same-sex marriage down the aisle. Because we want gay marriage passed now. This month. This year. In New York!

Now, I have a secret to tell you. Last month, my girlfriend Christine and I got engaged. And I have a beautiful ring to prove it. And we could go to Canada. And we could go to Connecticut. And we could go to Iowa. But we don't want to. We want to get married right here in New York City, where we live, where our kids live, where our friends can just stroll down the block to wish us well. And, not incidentally, we would like to spend our wedding revenue dollars here in New York City. Just think of what legalizing same-sex marriage has done for Massachusetts! Wouldn't it be nice to bring a little of that money to the Big Apple and Rochester and Buffalo?

Now, for the last two years, my girlfriend has been the stay-at-home mom for our kids, which means that she's helping raise them. She is the person who does a lot of the picking them up and helping them with their homework, and the thousand things that every mother does every day. But the hard reality is that if something happened to me and I dropped dead tomorrow, she would have absolutely no legal claim to them. And that is just one of the almost 2500 state and federal rights and responsibilities that straight people have to protect their families that gay families are now denied.

Now some people oppose same-sex marriage and will always oppose same-sex marriage and about those people there is nothing that we can do. But I know that the majority of people who oppose same-sex marriage just haven't caught up with us yet, and it is to them that I want to speak. Now the main argument that I hear against legalizing same-sex marriage is that in some way this will forever alter and mar traditional marriage. What I want to know is, "How?"

How will my girlfriend and I getting married have any effect on you and your wife, or you and your husband sitting at home? I often hear that the fight to legalize same-sex marriage is seen as an attack on traditional marriage, and I want to say that you are not the ones being attacked. We are.

And please believe that I am not being flippant when I say this: The right to marry is about us, it is not about you any more than the fight for integration was about white people or a woman's right to vote was about men. It is only about you to the extent that you have to live with yourselves knowing that you are depriving a significant portion of the population their basic civil rights. We are couples who have been together for a year or 5 years or 10 years or 30 years or 50 years, many of us have children and many more of us will will have them. Our families are the same as yours, our relationships are the same as yours, and our marriages should be the same as yours."

Cheers and calls from people gathered in the streets underscored Nixon's rousing words. Nixon was joined onstage by her Sex and the City co-star Kristen Davis, who smiled brightly as she applauded throughout the speech. Nixon was followed by other performers and political figures who also stepped up to the stage to share messages of their own.

Our congratulations to the brave star and her loving family!

※To see video of Nixon's speech at the rally, follow the link below:
www.broadway.tv/blog

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