Voice for Equality: Chad Allen

Chad Allen is an American actor who has been in show business since he was a child. He is best known for his role on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman alongside Jane Seymour from 1993-1998 and more recently, on General Hospital: Night Shift. He also starred in the films Third Man Out and Save Me. Learn more here.

After being outed in 2001, he became a champion for gay rights, including marriage equality. On a 2006 Larry King Live panel, Allen was asked why he wanted gay people to be able to marry. He responded:

If you had asked me this question a year ago, I wouldn’t have cared...And then I fell in love a year ago…And for the first time in my life I started thinking about this institution of marriage and what my parents talked about and about building a life with somebody else…and to tell me that I’m a second class citizen—that’s not okay.

In the same panel discussion, Allen commented on the inadequacy of civil unions:

We already decided as a country that separate but equal was not good enough for us. If that’s the case, then its time that we all stood up and again proclaim that separate but equal is not good enough for us…But then you want to tell me that I’m second class because I can't call it marriage? That’s not good enough for me. [Link]

Freedom to Marry salutes Chad Allen as a Voice for Equality! See other Voices for Equality here.

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