Alan Cumming thinks gay people are treated like second class citizens.
The 51-year-old Scottish actor – who tied the knot with his partner Grant Shaffer in Britain in 2007 – has claimed he still experiences prejudice because of his sexual orientation and it’s a problem many members of the LBGT community have in the 21st century, despite huge changes made in society.
Asked if people are still intolerant toward him, he told The Times newspaper: "Yeah, because I live in the world. I’m very privileged person, but there are certain things I’m aware of in certain places I go to. If you’re a (gay) person living in this world, you still feel like you’re a second class citizen. Because you absolutely are. You still don’t have the same rights."
Alan legally married graphic artist Grant Schaffer in New York on 7 January 2012, the day civil partnerships were made legal in some states in the US. The ceremony took place exactly five years after they entered into a civil partnership in London.
When they first wed in the UK, the couple released a statement urging the US to follow the progressive lead of Britain and give same sex couples the right to marry.
It read: "Not only are we so happy to be able to celebrate our love for each other, but also to be able to do it in a country that properly recognises the rights of same sex couples. As residents of America we would have loved to marry there, but we hope that soon the civil rights that we have been afforded in the UK will be available to all gay Americans and we look forward to celebrating not only our marriage, but the end of prejudice."
‘The Good Wife’ star – who was previously married to Hilary Lyon from 1985 to 1993 – is, in fact, bisexual and revealed he made the decision to publicly state his sexuality because he felt he was being "misrepresented".
He previously said: "I just felt I was being misrepresented a lot of the time, mostly with people saying I was straight. It is confusing for people because I’d been married before. Now I’m married again, to a man, but I’d been married to a woman, and gone out with women. And then, I hadn’t really had regular relationships with men, long-term ones, I mean. But amongst my friends, amongst people I’d known, I was always bisexual."
Alan Cumming: Gay people are treated like second class citizens
