Friday on The View, the unstoppable force met the immovable object and made the immovable object look pretty darn silly. In this case, Portia de Rossi was the unstoppable force and Elisabeth Hasselbeck was the immovable object.
The Better Off Ted actress stopped by the daytime chatfest and thinks turned gay pretty quickly — as in within 40 seconds quickly. Portia discussed her last visit to the show in 2003 when she was still in the closet and scared of being asked personal questions. And then the topic turned to her marriage with Ellen DeGeneres.
Then infamously conservative host Elisabeth asked Portia why gay marriage had to be called “marriage.”
Elisabeth: Men and women. Women want all the rights of men, but they’re not asking to be called men. Do you think — is the word (marriage) more important than the rights?
Portia: No, of course the word isn’t more important than the rights. But without the word, we don’t have equal rights … Every citizen of this country should have that legal right to be married. Marriage the word actually does mean something because people who see a gay coupling as like a lesser thing in society can continue to be lesser than marriage when really it’s the exact same thing. The exact same love, the exact same commitment, love of family, you know.
Yeah, what she said.
It’s wonderful to see Portia so eloquently, yet forcefully dismantle the arguments against gay marriage. It’s also bizarre to see Elisabeth use the women’s rights movement against gay marriage. Um, not to get all Spock, but that was highly illogical.
The whole interview was filled with gems, including Portia’s face when Joy Behar told her that “men will always believe that a woman like you can be had by a man.” I think that smile is the visual representations of “Dream on, fellas, dream on.”
Watch the whole interview here and tell me you don’t feel like giving her a nice, hearty round of applause afterward.
That, immovable Elisabeth, is what you call the unstoppable force of progress. Thanks for the reminder, Portia.
