Ellen DeGeneres on 8th Grader Murdered Because He Was Gay: "We Must Change Our Country" [VIDEO]

Posted by Adam Howard, AlterNet at 12:25 PM on February 29, 2008.

"Check on who you're voting for. Does that person really truly believe that we are all equal under the law?," Ellen asks.

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In a segment that aired today, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres speaks about the murder of 15-year-old Lawrence King, who was killed by a classmate for being gay. Saying that "we must change our country," Ellen urges her audience to "check on who you're voting for" to see if they stand for gay rights:

A boy has been killed and a number of lives have been ruined. And, somewhere along the line the killer, Brandon, got the message that it's so threatening, so awful, and so horrific that Larry would want to be his Valentine -- that killing Larry seemed to be the right thing to do. And when the message out there is so horrible that to be gay, you can get killed for it, we need to change the message. Larry was not a second-class citizen. I am not a second-class citizen. It's ok if you're gay.

"I think one thing we should change is hate," Ellen said. "Check on who you're voting for. Does that person really truly believe that we are all equal under the law?"

h/t Think Progress

Tagged as: lawrence king, hate crimes, degenres, homophobia

Adam Howard is the editor of PEEK.