Interview with George Takei and Brad Altman

AE: Did you have the same sort of thing with Nichelle and Leonard?
GT: Yes. Nichelle is a very dear friend. She’s been over here and we’ve been over to her home as well. We’d shared our lives like that. I really consider it a great blessing from Star Trek that my work colleagues have become good friends.

Nichelle Nichols, Takei and Walter Koenig

Photo credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

AE: You grew up in the era of internment camps and I know you actually spent time in an internment camp –
GT: All four years of the war.

AE: And you saw the civil rights movement and now you’ve seen gay people being able to get married in Massachusetts and California and Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for president. Are you amazed at the changes you’ve seen in your lifetime?
GT: Well, you know, when I was in the internment camp itself, I was too young to really understand what was going on, but after the war and when I was a teenager I started asking my father a lot of questions about what happened to us during the war. And I really feel extraordinarily blessed in the man that my father was because he was the one who felt the pain of internment the most, and yet he was able to put it in a larger context, and I’ll quote a phrase that my father said to me often. He said, “Both the strength and the weakness of American democracy lies in the fact that it’s a true people’s democracy and it can be as great as the people can be, but it is as fallible as people are. And that’s why democracy is so dependent on good people being engaged in the process.”

And he encouraged all of his children, my brother and my sister and myself, to be active in the political process. And because he gave us that kind of guidance, I understood what the fundamental ideal of democracy was. And yes, over my lifetime we are getting closer and closer to the ideals of our democracy and our constitution. As you said, Japanese-Americans were imprisoned with no due process, [but] I can now be an actor or a congressman. There are Japanese-Americans throughout society.

I have seen the nation change and I have seen us getting closer and closer to those fundamental ideals. I’m an optimist and I’m sure that before too long we’ll be able to see the United States Supreme Court come down with a ruling of equality for all, and perhaps maybe even in my lifetime the ruling on gay marriage will seem kind of quaint and antiquated.

AE: That philosophy of your dad’s, is that how you’re able to handle the homophobia that you encounter? Sean Delonas, who writes political editorial cartoons for the New York Post recently did a cartoon mocking the idea of your ceremony and I know there have been other . . .
GT: How did he cartoon it?

AE: It was the bridge of the Enterprise and it showed you and Brad about to get married and the rest of the crew was standing around looking baffled or horrified while Leonard Nimoy as Spock was saying “Totally illogical, Captain.” Delonas is notoriously homophobic. When the state of New Jersey was considering same-sex marriage, he drew a cartoon of a man showing up with a sheep under his arm to get a marriage license. No doubt you’ve encountered plenty of this sort of stuff.
GT: Let me take that cartoon that you described, and [draw another one]. On the fringes there will be someone shaking their fist saying, “This is crazy! This is warped. This is vile!” And Spock and all the rest of the crew will be looking at that ranting, raving lunatic and saying, “That is illogical.” That’s the cartoon that’s really going to prevail ultimately.

AE: Perfect answer. Ever since you came out you have been popping up all over the place: on Heroes and Jimmy Kimmel, etc. I’m curious if you are surprised about that and I’m also curious about what’s next for you.
GT: I’m delighted at the second wind my career is enjoying and in large part, I think, it’s the touch of that amazing man called Howard Stern, of all people. Because despite the popular image of him, he is a great champion of equality for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender.

The thing that Howard does is his listenership is a certain demographic that really doesn’t ordinarily think about the issues confronting the GLBT community, although there are many GLBT people who listen to Howard. And by taking that position of looking at gays and lesbians and bisexuals and transgender as part of the whole wonderful and sometimes ridiculous community that the world is, he normalizes that.

Howard Stern is able to reach another demographic that could have been adversaries and gotten them stopping and thinking, “Hey, Howard’s right!” These are Howard devotees so they’ll go with Howard. But also Howard makes it a reasonable, rational attitude so he’s been able to contribute to the change in climate and attitude toward the GLBT community and in so doing more people are comfortable about coming out and certainly the more accepting the general public becomes the more GLBT performers’ careers flourish.

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