Actor Andrew Garfield says the “old guard” who believe in values like traditional marriage should take their “bigoted ideas” and “vanish into the night”.
Garfield, who played Spider-Man in the 2012 and 2014 films, was speaking before winning a Tony lead actor award for a play about HIV.
He told Variety magazine on the red carpet at the awards ceremony: “We need to change everything”.
Christian baker
Garfield, who lived in England for much of his childhood, also spoke out on LGBT issues during his acceptance speech on Sunday.
He criticised last week’s US Supreme Court ruling on religious liberty which saw judges back a Christian baker who politely declined to make a same-sex wedding cake.
In response to a question about the decision, Garfield attacked those with different views to his own, describing them as bigoted.
…the old guard needs to quietly vanish into the night
‘Old bigoted ideas’
“I mean, here we are, the Supreme Court making this very very curious decision, that will only embolden other human beings to think it’s OK to hold on to their old bigoted ideas.
“We need to change everything, we need to start over, the old guard needs to quietly vanish into the night and graciously give the world to the new generation”.
He added that this ‘new generation’ “knows we are all created to love and live”.
Gay fantasia
The play he stars in, Angels in America, is described as a “gay fantasia on national themes” and focuses on the 1980s.
“In the midst of the AIDS crisis and a conservative Reagan administration, New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell”, says a summary.
The play totals nearly eight hours in length.
Tolerance
The ruling that Garfield criticised saw seven US Supreme Court judges back Jack Phillips.
Phillips was sued after he had declined to create a custom cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding.
Justice Anthony Kennedy criticised Phillips’ treatment and said such disputes “must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market”.