Oprah Winfrey opened Pride Month with a video supporting the LGBTQ+ community that referenced her late brother’s struggle with AIDS. “It was 35 years ago that my younger brother Jeffrey Lee died from AIDS,” Winfrey said in a video posted to the Oprah Daily Instagram. “He was 29 years old.
The year was 1989 and the world was an extremely cruel place, not just for people suffering from AIDS, but also for LGBTQ people in general. “I often think if he’d lived he’d be so amazed at how much the world has changed, that there actually is gay marriage and a Pride Month.” Gay marriage was legalized in the United States in 2015, but has recently come under new attacks as anti-LGBTQ+ laws spread across the country and the overturn of Roe vs.
Wade threatens the legal precedent on which gay marriage was permitted. In California, gay marriage protections will return to the ballot in 2024 . “How different his life might have been had he lived in these times,” Winfrey continued in the post labeled “Oprah’s Pride Month Message.
” “In a world that saw and appreciated him for who he was rather than attempting to shame him for his sexuality.” LGBTQ+ acceptance has continued to rise in the United States following the legalization of gay marriage. Seventy-one percent of Americans believe those in gay and lesbian marriages should be afforded the same rights as those in heterosexual marriages, and 75% of the country believes gay and lesbian couples should be able to adopt.
