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Tuesday, 20 May 2008 |
 Original Star Trek star George Takei has announced plans to wed his same-sex partner and business manager Brad Altman.
Takei, who played Lieutenant Sulu in the 1960s cult sci-fi series and has an asteroid named after him, will formalise his union with Altman by taking advantage of the California Supreme Court's decision last week to overturn the state's ban on gay marriage.
Takei is the second showbiz star to announce marriage plans following Ellen Degeneres' announcement last week.
Takei said he was "overjoyed" to be able to marry.
 "We've shared the good times as well as struggled through the bad. He helped me care for my ailing mother who lived with us for the last years of her life.
"He is my love and I can't imagine life without him. Now, we can have the dignity, as well as all the responsibilities, of marriage. We embrace it all heartily."
In his announcement, Takei also spoke of his experience of discrimination as both a gay man and a Japanese-American.
"As a Japanese American, I am keenly mindful of the subtle and not so subtle discrimination that the law can impose.
"During World War II, I grew up imprisoned behind the barbed wire fences of U.S. internment camps. Pearl Harbor had been bombed and Japanese Americans were rounded up and incarcerated simply because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor.
"Fear and war hysteria swept the nation. A Presidential Executive Order directed the internment of Japanese Americans as a matter of national security.
"Now, with the passage of time, we look back and see it as a shameful chapter of American history...With time, I know the opposition to same sex marriage, too, will be seen as an antique and discreditable part of our history," he wrote.
He said he and Altman were enjoying the "delicious dilemma" of planning the wedding.
"Marriage equality took a long time, but, like fine wine, its bouquet is simply exquisite."
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