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People of the Year: Al Gore, Chad Griffin, and Lawrence King

This week Advocate.com is going to highlight our remaining People of the Year, who range from activists to entertainers, politicians to students. Today we take a look at environmentalist Al Gore, political strategist Chad Griffin, and slain student Lawrence King.


This week Advocate.com is going to highlight our remaining People of the Year, who range from activists to entertainers, politicians to students. Today we take a look at environmentalist Al Gore, political strategist Chad Griffin, and slain student Lawrence King.

Not only did former Vice President Al Gore make the case for gay marriage for his cable channel Current, but he’s been a staunch environmentalist way before it was hip.

For more than a decade, Chad Griffin has used his political nature to influence Hollywood, but this past year, he used his clout in an attempt to give Proposition 8 a run for its money.

Most of the world only knew of 15-year-old Lawrence King after his murder in February, but his legacy lives on as another face in a movement to stop violence and start tolerance in schools.

 

Al Gore

Of all the political surprises in 2008, perhaps none was sweeter than Al Gore’s January announcement -- in a Current.com video -- that he supports marriage equality. In the casual one-minute clip, part of the site’s "Make Your Point" series, the former vice-president, sitting in what appears to be a classroom, said that "gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women -- to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage.” He added that he didn't understand why same-sex marriage "is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage," asking, "Shouldn't we be promoting…faithfulness and loyalty to one’s partner?"

At the time, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were slugging it out in South Carolina (the video went live just days before the state’s primary) and Democrats were focused on what was fast becoming an epic showdown. Meanwhile, Gore’s remarks, while certainly welcome, seemed positively out of left field—not least because, unburdened by electoral concerns, he spoke freely on a subject most politicians get tongue-tied talking around.

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