Brad Pitt Asks, "What's So Scary About Gay People Getting Married?"

Brad Pitt with partner Angelina Jolie

Brad Pitt has an interview in this week's Parade, and everyone got so worked up over those comments about his being bored in his marriage to Jennifer Aniston that they failed to take much notice of what he had to say in the same piece about religion and marriage equality. He's strongly in favor of the latter – and not so keen on the former. These are subjects Pitt has covered before in other interviews, but the Parade piece has some interesting quotes.

On gay marriage, frankly he seems even more impassioned than a lot of people in the gay community. He wants the right to gay marry right now, nationwide, and not just in a patchwork of progressive states.

“It is an amazing thing that New York has finally gotten same-sex marriage. But the real problem is that the federal government hides behind states on this issue. It is blatant, ugly bigotry, and the federal government shouldn’t be doing that. You’re denying some Americans the right that all Americans have, to live their lives as they choose." 

Of people who take religious issue with gays and gay marriage, Pitt asks, "what are you so afraid of?"

"Gay people getting married? What is so scary about that? It’s complicated. You grow up in a religion like that and you try to pray the gay away. I feel sadness for people like that. This is where people start short-circuiting—instead of being brave and questioning their beliefs, they are afraid and feel that they have to defend them."

Pitt has referred to himself as an agnostic or non-believer before (in an interview with Germany's BILD Magazine). He doesn't explicitly reiterate that in this latest Parade piece, but you can sort of read between the lines...

“I don’t mind a world with religion in it. There are some beautiful tenets within all religions. What I get hot about is when they start dictating how other people must live. People suffer because of it. They are spreading misery."   
  
Pitt is currently promoting his latest film Moneyball. For a big Hollywood star it's quite remarkable that he's willing to risk offending all those fundamentalist Christian moviegoers by engaging on such hot button topics.

He needn't have worried. Sadly, everyone's more interested in what his marriage to Aniston was like.