Maya Angelou Renowned writer, poet and civil rights champion Maya Angelou has died at the age of 86. Angelou was also supportive of equality for gay people, who she mentioned among many in her famous poem On the Pulse of Morning which she read for the 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton. She believed in the shared humanity of all people, no matter what their race, gender, sexuality or religion, explaining this at a 1996 festival with the statement “I am gay. I am lesbian. I am black. I am white. I am Native American. I am Christian. I am Jew. I am Muslim.” She was also all for marriage equality, telling a New York state senator in 2009 “I would ask every man and every woman who’s had the blessing of having children, ‘Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love?’ “'To love someone takes a lot of courage. So how much more is one challenged when the love is of the same sex and the laws say, ‘I forbid you from loving this person’?”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 29th May 2014 - 11:00am