The Supreme Court agreed Friday to rule on marriage equality, much to the relief of many Hollywood notables including Ellen DeGeneres.
The TV host responded to the news from her seat on a Television Critics Association panel in Pasadena, California, which she attended to promote the upcoming NBC series “One Big Happy.”
“It’s about time,” she told TheWrap and other gathered journalists. “The thing that changed the civil rights movement was when white people got involved and started marching. We need everyone on our side. We’re kind of trying to do this march and we need people that believe in equality and believe in fairness and love. If we have people that will join us and give us that, which is only fair to have the same rights as everybody else, then it’s a wonderful world.”
The Supreme Court justices have agreed to hear consolidated arguments from four different cases — involving Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee — in April, and then issue a ruling before the term ends in June.
DeGeneres isn’t the only Hollywood figure to react to the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the cases.
The Supreme Court has agreed to rule on gay marriage this year. In exchange, Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be the new host of Fashion Police.
— billy eichner (@billyeichner) January 16, 2015
BREAKING: The Supreme Court has just agreed to hear the marriage equality cases out of the 6th Circuit (shown in … pic.twitter.com/KLWzwfwSsw
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) January 16, 2015
The Supreme Court will decide by June on the merits of what we already know: Marriage equality should be for EVERYONE. #LoveEquality
— Marlee Matlin (@MarleeMatlin) January 16, 2015
One same-sex couple celebrating timing the announcement with laser-precision? Out football player Michael Sam, who proposed to his boyfriend, Vito Cammisano.
“Thank you for saying yes,” Sam tweeted. An attached photo sees Sam on bended knee popping the question at Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Basilica.
“One Big Happy” focuses on Lizzy (Elisha Cuthbert), a lesbian who decides to conceive a child with the assistance of her straight friend Luke. DeGeneres and her company A Very Good Prods. are producing the series, which is written by Liz Feldman.
On Friday’s panel DeGeneres explained how the new series differs from “Ellen,” her groundbreaking ABC sitcom from the 1990s. “We’re setting out with a lesbian as a central character, so it’s not a surprise … so nobody’s going to freak out, versus then, when it freaked out everybody — because nobody had a clue I was gay,” she said.