The actor feels that no gay couple should have to flee the country to marry the person they love.
Colin Farrell has written an open letter, which appears in today’s Sunday World, in which he urges people to register in time to vote for gay marriage to become legal in Ireland next year.
Farrell reveals how his own brother Eamon was forced to go to Canada to marry his partner, Steven, a situation the In Bruges star describes as being ‘insane.’
“My brother Eamon didn’t choose to be gay,” Farrell writes.
“Yes, he chose to wear eyeliner to school and that probably wasn’t the most pragmatic response to the daily torture he experienced at the hands of school bullies.
“But he was always proud of who he was.
“Proud and defiant and, of course, provocative. Even when others were casting him out with fists and ridicule and the laughter of pure loathsome derision, he maintained an integrity and dignity that flew in the face of the cruelty that befell him.
“I don’t know where those bullies are now, the ones who beat him regularly. Maybe some of them have found peace and would rather forget their own part of a painful past. Maybe they’re sitting on bar stools and talking about “birds and faggots” and why one’s the cure and the other the disease.”
On his brother’s trip to Canada, he added: “They had to travel a little farther than down the aisle to make their vows, though, to Canada, where their marriage was celebrated.
“That’s why this is personal to me. The fact that my brother had to leave Ireland to have his dream of being married become real is insane. INSANE.”
The Dubliner went on to issue a call to people to vote gay marriage in when 2015 comes around.
“How often do we get to make history in our lives? Not just personal history. Familial. Social. Communal. Global. The world will be watching. We will lead by example. Let’s lead toward light.”
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