Actress Anne Hathaway has opened up about why she loves the LGBTIQ+ community, accepting the Human Rights Campaign's National Equality Award over the weekend.
“What I love most about this community is the way you own the alphabet,” the Oscar winner and longtime advocate joked.
She continued: “For real, what I love about this community is the freedom. The freedom that comes with being yourself. All of yourself. I love the energy, the activism, the generosity, the light, the shade, the fun. I love the dignity that accompanies self acceptance.”
“This community is a community of optimists," she said.
She added: "This community has transformed a world full of stark, black and white morality into one of rainbow prismatic lustrous freedom.
“Love is love, and equality just is.
“You taught me that. You teach us all. So, let me say: for everyone whose lives you have made better, which is to say for every one, thank you.”
Hathaway, who has an older gay brother, has been a vocal supporter of the LGBTIQ+ community for years.
"There are people who have said that that I'm being brave for being openly supportive of gay marriage, gay adoption, basically of gay rights, but with all due respect, I humbly dissent," Hathaway said at a previous HRC event.
"I'm not being brave, I'm being a decent human being - and I don't think I should receive an award for that. Or for merely stating what I believe to be true."
"That love is a human experience, not a political statement."
