THE TELEGRAPH: Steven Spielberg and his wife have become the latest Hollywood celebrities to help bankroll a bid to defeat a referendum seeking to outlaw gay marriage in California.
The director and Kate Capshaw have donated $100,000 to a campaign to defeat a controversial ballot initiative that will be voted on during the November 4 election.
The measure, known as proposition 8, seeks a ban on same-sex marriage in the wake of the landmark California Supreme Court ruling in May that overturned a previous ban on gay weddings.
The effort to defeat the ban has already attracted the financial backing of actor Brad Pitt, who last week also donated $100,000 to opponents of the proposition.
"By writing discrimination into our state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual orientation," Spielberg and Capshaw said in a statement.
"Such discrimination has no place in California's constitution, or any other."
Marvin Levy, Spielberg's spokesman, later added: "Obviously, he's hopeful that this proposition can be defeated, and that everyone has the same rights."
Same-sex marriage is legal in only two US states - California and Massachusetts, where gay weddings have been legal since 2004. Steven Spielberg Joins Campaign to Prevent Gay Marriage Ban >>> | September 24, 2008
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